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FACTSANDFldjRES 



COMPILED BY 



WALTER 
CAMPdb 







FOOTBALL FACTS AND FI 

A SYMPOSIUM OF EXPERT OPINION 
ON THE GAME'S PLACE IN 
AMERICAN ATHLETICS 



COMPILED BT 

WALTER CAMP 

AUTHOR OP "AMERICAN FOOTBALL" ETC. 



/z 




i/^Ol^'Z 



NEW YORK 

HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 

1 894 






Copyright, 1894, by Harper & Brothers. 
All rights reserved. 



NOTE. 

The statistics contained in this volume were collected by a committee 
consisting of the Hon. James W. Alexander, President of the University 
Club, of New York ; the Rev. Joseph H. Twichell, of the Yale Corpora- 
tion ; the Hon. Henry E. Howland, of the New York Bar; the Rev. 
Midicott Peabody, of Oroton School; Robert Bacon, of the Harvard 
Board of Overseers ; and Walter Camp. 



CONTENTS 



CHAP. PAOK 
INTRODUCTION — ORIGIN OP THE COMMITTEE ... V 
I. FACTS AND OPINIONS REGARDING FOOTBALL AS EX- 
PRESSED BY THOSE WHO HAVE STUDIED THE SUBJECT 1 
II. STATISTICS OF UNIVERSITY AND SCHOOL PLAYERS AS 

COLLECTED BY THE COMMITTEE 59 

ni. LETTERS FROM MEMBERS OP THE FACULTY AND HEAD- 
MASTERS 66 

rv. LETTERS PROM CAPTAINS 139 

V. LETTERS PROM PLAYERS 160 

VI. CONCLUSION OP THE COMMITTEE 233 



INTRODUCTION 

ORIGIN OF THE COMMITTEE 

The stir that had been created last fall * by the whole- 
sale attacks upon football was sufficient to leave parents 
of boys in an uncomfortable uncertainty as to what 
I their duty was, and this uncertainty finally led a promi- 
nent Boston gentleman to formally ask the Harvard 
Board of Overseers for an investigation. No one, up to 
that time, had felt called upon to present the other side 
of the question, and those most familiar with the sport 
had been disinclined to take up what might, they said, 
be termed a defence of football. But when it was made 
evident that in such an enquiry there was only the 
desire for a full and complete investigation, it seemed 
both possible and just to secure a wide expression of 
opinion from past players, and from those most com- 
petent, through their connection with schools and col- 
leges, to judge as to the effects of the game, Mr. 
Robert Bacon, of the Harvard Board of Overseers, 
was on the committee to whom this question was re- 
ferred, and in November he came to New Haven and 
asked Mr. Walter Camp if he would consent to act as 
chairman of a committee or body of investigators who 
should look into the matter thoroughly. He further 
stated that the gentleman who asked the question of the 
Harvard Board of Overseers was in no way opposed to 
football, but was, like many others, anxious to possess 
some definite knowledge as to the facts. The plan 
seemed practicable, and after obtaining their consent to 
act, the following gentlemen were asked to attend a 
* 1893. 



VI INTRODUCTION 

meeting in New York : Rev. Jos. Twichell of Hartford, 
Conn., a member of the Yale Corporation ; Rev. Endi- 
cott Peabody of Groton School, Mass. ; James W. Alex- 
ander of Princeton, vice-president of the Equitable Life 
Assurance Society ; Honorable Henry E. Howland of 
New York ; Robert Bacon of the Harvard Board of 
Overseers, and Walter Camp. Dr. Pepper of the Uni- 
versity of Pennsylvania had also been invited, but press 
of work prevented his accepting. Mr. Camp submitted 
a plan of investigation which the gentlemen discussed 
and ultimately authorized. This plan was to secure an 
expression of opinion from head-masters of schools, | 
members of faculty of colleges, and former captains of 
football teams. In addition to this it was planned to 
institute a compaiuson between football and some well 
known sport. After investigation it was found that the 
only thorough enquiry into the question of the number 
benefited and injured by any sport was one made by 
Dr. Morgan of Oxford, regarding the boating men of 
his university. It was, therefore, determined to take 
his summary as the basis of comparison. It was found 
that by taking the players of the Harvard, Princeton, 
and Yale teams from the introduction of Rugby foot- 
ball into America, down to the present date, the number 
would be very close to the number of men who rowed 
in 'varsity races during the years included in Dr. Mor- 
gan's research. A quotation from McLaren gives the 
best idea of Dr. Morgan's work : 

" For many a long year strange tales of the risks and 
dangers of rowing, or rather of boat-racing, have had 
a floating existence in the universities, and, gaining 
strength and circumstantiality by time and repetition, 
have extended to wider circles. While the old tales 
lived and held their own, other and more startling 
legends sprang up and also grew into importance — 
legends so alarming, and related with such circum- 



INTRODUCTION vii 

stantial detail, that the most sceptical began to think 
'there must be something in it.' Wliole crews, it was 
stated, had been swept off in a few brief years by their 
terrible struggles and efforts at the oar. This feeling 
of uneasiness, if not of absolute alarm, attained a sort 
of climax a few years ago by the letters of an eminent 
surgeon published in the Times. For reasons which 
seemed to his professional judgment sufficient, he took 
the side of the alarmist, and pronounced an opinion, 
strongly expressed, against boat-racing as now practised. 
These letters were answered with more or less ability by 
votaries of the oar, men then actively engaged in row- 
ing, or who had recently been so. The ample lists in 
Dr. Morgan's book, the liberal extracts from his corre- 
spondents' answers to his queries — his correspondents 
being the oarsmen themselves — tell us all ; tell us Avhere 
they are, what they are doing, what they did when with 
us and how they did it, and, in their own lanj'uag^, tell 
with characteristic frankness, and in words wlich v ? 
can still recognize as their old modes of expression, what 
they think and believe for or against their old favorite 
pastime." 

His table of conclusions was as follows : 

Benefited by rowing, 115 

Uninjured by rowing, 132 

Injured by rowing, 17 

It was the purpose of this committee, expressed at its 
first meeting, to lay before parents, faculty, and all in- 
terested as complete an investigation as possible of the 
results of the game in this country since it became a 
recognized sport in 18V6. In order to do this they have 
followed up every player on the Harvard and Yale teams 
with one exception, and all but some half dozen on the 
Princeton teams, during that period of eighteen years. 
They have replies from the living, and, in the case of 



VIU INTRODUCTION 

the dead, the testimony of friends or family as to the 
cause of death. Regarding the latter, in only a single 
instance was death attributed in any way to the sport. 
In that single case overtraining in several athletic lines 
was supposed to have weakened the constitution of the 
man, although no direct connection existed. Similar 
enquiries were made by Mr. John C. Bell regarding the 
players of the University. of Pennsylvania, and the pro- 
portions are practically the same as in the other three. 

The committee have also assembled the opinions of 
members of the faculty and head-masters of schools 
that the reader might know what the effect of the game 
was from the standpoint of the expert observer who 
would be particularly tenacious of the rights of study 
and discipline. In order to have a fair showing of both 
sides, aW the letters received from this source are printed. 
In the case of the letters from players, the opinion was 
so unanimously in favor of the sport that only a few are 
given. 

For the sake of comparison, and not in any way as 
reflecting upon rowing, for Dr. Morgan's report shows 
the value of that sport, Dr. Morgan's investigation into 
English university rowing has been taken. 



FACTS AND OPINIONS REGARDING FOOTBALL 3 

men over another, but it is a contest for supremacy, in 
which supremacy is gained not by physical strength 
alone, but by this strength rightly directed by mind. 

In the first place the rules of the game must be 
observed by every playei*. The interpretation and 
application of them in every moment of play calls for 
no ordinary quickness of mind in a successful player. 

Though each man has a special line of play belonging 
to his position on a team, yet his play is so related to the 
plays of the rest of the team, that he cannot act without 
regard to the other players. It is eminently a game of 
combinations. Individual play is important, but team- 
play is more important. The signals of the captain must 
be heeded by all the players, even if they seem to be 
given for only two or three men. 

Then, through weeks of preparation, these signals 
have to be studied, to be memorized, to be practised as 
thoroughly and faithfully by the men as the laws of any 
science by successful scholars. 

The only other college game which is to be compared 
with it in respect of team-play is the game of base-ball. 
Yet in this game the players have fixed positions. 
Though team-play is important, it is not as important as 
in football, while individual play, as for instance that of 
pitcher or catcher, is more important. 

In rowing, the work, though requiring skill and severe 
training, is largely mechanical. In track athletics the 
individual is everything. 

That the game has had attractions for intellectual 
men in the past is shown by the fact that the average 
scholarship of men on the football teams has of late 
years been higher than that of men in the other athletic 
organizations. Notwithstanding the present style of 
mass play, which puts a premium on physical strength 
and weight, it was a surprise to me to find that the 
average scholarship of the sixteen men from the aca- 



4 FOOTBAi^L FACTS AND FIGURES 

demic department, including players and substitutes, was 
higher than the average of any class which ever gradu- 
ated. I cannot believe, however, that the high scholar- 
ship of football players will always prevail unless the 
style of the game be changed to one which admits of 
more open play. 

Another advantage of the game is that the practice of 
it engages a large number of players. A regular team 
has two more men than the base-ball nine, and three 
moi'e than the crew of eight men. The substitutes, hav- 
ing a systematic training, are more numerous than the 
substitutes for either base-ball or for the crew. Track 
athletics only can be compared with it in the numbers 
brought into it. For a short period of the year this 
latter sport may exercise more men, but taking into 
consideration the various class teams of football, and 
especially the team of the Freshmen class with substi- 
tutes, it is doubtful if even the numbers of those engag- 
ing in track athletics exceed the numbers engaging in 
football. 

Of the benefits accruing to the players, the physical 
benefits are the least noteworthy. Yet the play brings 
into activity almost every muscle of the body. The 
legs, the arras, and the trunk are all used. No part of 
the muscular system is developed abnormally. But 
great as are the benefits of the sport to the players in 
mind and body, they are not to be compared with its 
moral effects. If there is one virtue more to be desired 
in a manly character, without which indeed the character 
ceases to be manly, that virtue is courage. And of the 
college sports there is not one which cultivates this 
manly virtue more than football. Neither is the courage 
required entirely physical. Indeed, the best players 
feel and see the danger which they brave. Conscious 
of injuries received, they often continue to face plays 
which may exaggerate their pains. 



\ 



PACTS AND OPINIONS KEGARDING FOOTBALL 5 

Then the need of self-control in the midst of strong 
excitement is another valuable lesson learned. Self- 
denial is taught in the voluntary abnegation of the 
delights of college life, in the forsaking of indulgence 
in the luxuries of life. To training in courage, endur- 
ance, and self-control must be added the valuable lesson 
of obedience to authority. The discipline in this respect 
is as strict as the strictest military discipline. Men are 
required to obey captain and coach, and to obey silently. 
This unquestioning instant submission to word of com- 
mand is not the least of the excellent lessons of a foot- 
ball season. It shows its effects in the whole college 
life and college world. 

Strange as it may seem, a good claim can be made of 
a necessary connection between good character and 
good football in its best development. In every thing 
requiring the best results, the best success depends upon 
the best men. As there is no other college sport which 
so brings out the best virtues in a man, so there is no 
other college sport which is so dependent for its success 
upon good all-round men. Though this statement is 
measurably true for all amateur sports, it is emphatically 
true of football. It has been borne out by facts. The 
best teams in Yale have had not only the best players, 
but the most successful teams have contained the most 
moral and religious men. In a class prayer-meeting I 
once heard a man, who was for two years a most valu- 
able player (a captain one of those years), declare tl)at 
the great success of the team the previous season was, 
in his opinion, due to the fact that "among the team 
and substitutes there were so man)" praying men." As 
it was with this man, so it has ever been with the suc- 
cessful captains, as Avell as the successful coachers at 
Yale. They have been God-fearing men, upright in 
action and clean in speech. 

The good effects of the game of football, in com- 



6 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

mon with the good effects of the other sports, need 
only a passing mention. Among these may be in- 
stanced the esprit de corps to which the other sports 
give rise, the healthy excitements necessary to young 
men which they furnish, excitements which, for many, 
replace and moderate, if they do not entirely drive out, 
the old excitements of gambling and drinking, gate 
stealing, contests between town and gown, formerly so 
prevalent and so difficult to deal with on the part of 
the college authorities. But in addition to these and 
other benefits to the college world, football Math its 
contests and training comes at a time of the year when 
it does the most good, not only in the directions men- 
tioned, bur in two other ways. Boys who are just en- 
tering college, and for the first time in their careers are 
freed from the restraints of school or home, it intro- 
duces to a new discipline, a discipline of their fellows, 
and to new ideals which, if not the highest, are at least 
respectable and worthy of imitation. It brings many 
of them in contact with the best men in college, and 
saves not a few of them from wasting their idle hours 
in foolish and hurtful dissipation. Again, it absorbs 
the attention of all the college to such a degi'ee as to 
divert the minds of many of those upper-class men who 
formerly thought they had a mission to perform in 
acquainting the new men with the submission required 
of them in their college home. The discipline of the 
sport, coming at the time it does, has almost entirely 
done away with that occupation. The Freshmen have 
learned their lesson in a better way, under better instruc- 
tors. The discipline of football has almost banished 
the discipline of hazing, or left it tame and without 
excuse for its existence. 

Brutality. This is the hardest charge to meet because 
there is such a difference of opinion as to what con- 
stitutes brutality. In the eyes of timid people any 



PACTS AND OPINIONS EEGABDING FOOTBALL i 

collisions between young men in the most properly con- 
ducted game would seem brutal, though these same 
collisions would seem tame fun to the average school- 
boy. Personal encounters of some kind seem absolutely 
necessary to the education of young men, especially 
men of the strongest character. Such young men, judi- 
ciously trained, constitute the best citizens of a state. 
And a state full of such citizens becomes thereby the 
safest to live in, for such men are its best defence. At 
the dinner given by Colonel Higginson to the teams of 
Yale and Harvard, it was remarked by Mr. Ropes, the 
historian, that those nations which practised semi- 
military games like football were not only the strongest 
nations but that they were the least likely to push into 
war, whereas other nations seemed to carry a chip on 
their shoulders, ready to fight on the smallest prov- 
ocation. Certainly those who have been intimately 
acquainted with students and student life for the past 
twenty-five years can bear testimony not only to the 
decreasing brutality of college customs, but also to the 
generally mild and gentlemanly characters of the foot- 
ball players. They, by their influence and example in 
the college, have largely contributed to this better state 
of college life. 

If violent encounters on the football field do lead to 
the temptation of inflicting needless personal injuries 
on an opponent, they also give opportunities for resist- 
ing this temptation, and consequently for the develop- 
ment of the highest forms of courage and self-control. 
According to the observations of the writer, these op- 
portunities are embraced by the majority of the plaj'^ers. 
Only the minority yield to the temptation, and few of 
that minority attain to prominent places on a team. If 
the contrary were the fact, football would long ago 
have vanished from the list of college spoi'ts. 

With reference to the evils of public contests and 



8 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

gate money and strains and injuries, the writer sees no 
reason to change the views already expressed : 

" If field athletics are to continue, the expense of them 
must be met in one of two ways : either by gate money 
or by subscriptions. Most young men prefer to give 
their money at the gate and thus to pay for what they 
see. If a club knows that it has to spend only what it 
earns, it will be stimulated, first, to play as good a game 
as possible ; and, secondly, to spend its earnings witli 
prudence. It seems only just, too, that if the public 
desire to see a good game, they should pay for the 
exhibition." 

The evils of liability to strains and injuries in ath- 
letics cannot be entirely obviated. It is well to bear in 
mind at this point the fact that even those who are not 
athletes do not, therefore, enjoy immunity from acci- 
dents. Yet so far, according to the recollection of the 
writer, no regular member of a Yale crew, team, or nine, 
has been permanently injured by participating in a race 
or match. Still, it is possible that a slight injury, to a 
person having organic weakness, might result in a fatal 
lesion. Such an issue might be avoided by the re- 
quirement that every candidate for trial should be ex- 
amined by a competent physician, and, in default of 
pi'ocuring a certificate of physical soundness, should be 
excluded from participation in physical contests. 

As to the interference by the faculties in the way of 
measures limiting the game, I have already hinted at 
one, namely, the requiring of a certificate of physical 
soundness for every candidate for athletic honors. I 
would also limit teams to undergraduates. This meas- 
ure would bring the teams better under control of fac- 
ulty supervision, and Avould besides put a certain limit 
to competition. In the first place, the professional 
schools do not exercise a strict personal supervision over 
the students. They assume, and rightly, that a man who 



FACTS AND OPINIONS REGARDING FOOTBALL 9 

commences the study of a profession lias begun the se- 
rious business of life, and is capable of directing his own 
time. He may be absent from every exercise of the 
school, except the examinations. Passing those, he can 
still be a member of the school in good and regular 
standing. Such a student, when in competition for a 
place on the team with a member of the undergraduate 
department, who is held up to attendance on daily ex- 
ercises, has a great advantage over him. His freedom 
from restraint exercises a pernicious influence on the 
the man who is subject to restraint. Concert of action 
between the faculties of undergraduate departments and 
those of graduate and professional schools in the way of 
control of any sport is almost impossible from the very 
circumstances of the case. 

Instead of appointing committees to act with the stu- 
dents in the regulation of the sports, a better wa}'' to 
control them would be the appointment of a director of 
athletics to a seat in the undergraduate faculty, who 
should be the medium of communication between the 
students and the instructors. Such a man ought to 
have the confidence of the students and be in sympathy 
with them. He ought also to be a gentleman and a 
scholai", a graduate of the college, and a man holding its 
best traditions of righteousness and scholarship sacred. 
Such a man would be open to the responsibilities of 
both sides, of the scholarship side as represented by the 
instructors, and of the healtliy boy side of student life. 
I would not have the management of athletics taken 
out of the hands of the students, but I would have him 
help them with advice and with instruction too, if nec- 
essar}'-. I would have him attend the practice games 
and the races ; oversee the coaches and trainers, watch 
the players and students. He could prevent, without 
recourse to "reporting to the faculty," repetitions of 
mistakes and follies on the part of the students. He 



10 FOOTBALL PACTS AND FIGURES 

could keep out bad men from the list of trainers. He 
could prevent many a promising lad from wrecking him- 
self by making the excitement of college sport the be-all 
and end-all of his existence. By his presence among the 
instructors he could, as opportunity offered, with timely 
words, fend off those sad mistakes which worthy gen- 
tlemen of the best intentions sometimes make in their 
dealings with boys, mistakes of which I think I am 
justified in saying that Yale has not often been guilty 
in the past fifteen years. The director would earn his 
salary if he did faithfully what his hand found to do. 
If such men were appointed by all the colleges, and if 
joint action by the colleges seemed desirable, these men 
would be best fitted to deal with questions which might 
arise, and to suggest solutions of existing difficulties, 
without recommending unpractical and impossible plans. 

Professor Richards, in ' ^Popular Science Monthly " 

There is in every large college a body of men, many 
of whom may be at bottom very good fellows, but who, 
as a class, are not the best representafives of youthful 
manhood. These are the dudes, for whom athletic 
sports are too hard or too "brutal." They are an 
increasing class in the colleges Avhich draw their mem- 
bership largely from the cities. Where this class is 
most numerous, athletics flourish least. The best anti- 
dote to the dudish spirit is to be found in athletics. It 
will be an evil day for any college when this effeminate 
class is large enough or influential enough to call for or 
support measures which are designed to strike from the 
list of college sports a game like football. It is a 
rough game, but it requires, in a successful plaj'^er, the 
fearlessness, coolness, and quick thinking which make 
it, beyond all others, a manly game. 

To throw light on this question, the writer obtained 



FACTS AND OPINIONS REGARDING FOOTBALL 11 

from Dr. Seaver of Yale College two sets of measure- 
ments of members of one class, so as to ascertain the 
growth for one year. The first set of measurements 
was made soon after the class entered college, and its 
second set was taken in its sophomore year. Complete 
double measurements were procured from 102 men, the 
remainder of the class — between 20 and 30 men — hav- 
ing neglected to submit to the second measurement. 
Of these 22 were out-of-door athletes and 80 were 
not, though they were under instruction in light gym- 
nastics during a large part of their freshman year. 
The question, therefore, was considered under condi- 
tions as favorable as possible to Dr. Sargent's point 
of view. The results are j^resented graphically on 
page 12 and in numbers on page 13. 

In the table, the items of strength of back and legs, 
and of weight, are given in pounds. Capacity of lungs 
is given in cubic inches. The other figures denote 
millimetres and tenths of millimetres. 

The chart gives the average growth of the athletes 
as compared with the growth of the non-athletic men. 
The lighter parts of the chart indicate the excess of 
growth of one class above the growth of the other. 

Of the 22 athletes 2 were base-ball players, 6 foot- 
ball players, 6 rowing men, and 8 were ti'ack athletes. 
Of the football men 5 were also rowing men. The 
averages are given for the four sets of men, as well as 
for the two classes (non-athletic and athletic), that the 
reader may see for himself how each kind of exercise 
has affected those taking it. The figures for the special 
athletes are derived from so small a number of men that 
they can hardly be taken as conclusive. They are merely 
significant. The small gain in the average of " strength 
of legs " of the football men was due to the loss of 
strength on the part of one man. Without him the 
remaining 5 gained an average of forty-eight pounds. 



12 



FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 




FACTS AND OPINIONS REGAKDING FOOTBALL 



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FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 



The growth of girth of neck of the athletes, in com- 
parison with the same item for the non-athletic men, is 
worthy of attention. The gain in strength of back of 
the track athletes and their gain in strength of arm 
ought to be noticed. 

To test the question of symmetry of growth, the dif- 
ferences between the sizes of right arm and left arm, of 
right forearm and left forearm, of right thigh and left 
thigh, of right calf and left calf, were taken for each 
year. The sum of the differences of the second year 
(being less in both classes of students) was subtracted 
from the sum of the differences of the first year. The 
remainder was a gain in symmetry. This remainder, 
divided by the sum of the differences of the first year, 
gave the percentage of " gain in symmetry." 

Report of Dr. Conant, in charge of the Harvard Teams 

Including all the serious accidents, not only to the 
^varsity squad, but to the other class teams : 

LIST OF FOOTBALL INJURIES 



Fractures of the nose 

Dislocation of the shoulder 

Dislocation of the elbow 

Injury of the knee joint with effusion 

Injury of the knee joint without effusion. . . 

Sprains of the ankle 

Fracture of the metacarpal 

Fracture of the radius 

Fracture of the tibia and fibula 

Teno-synovitis 

Sprains other than knee and ankle 

Scalp wounds 

Injury to shoulder (Tackle's shoulder) 



m. 


'91. 


'92. 


9 


6 


5 





1 








2 





15 


12 


10 


20 


16 


12 


15 


16 


12 


4 


2 


2 














1 





12 


10 


8 


10 


6 


8 


4 


3 


3 


6 


4 


5 



'93. 



4 

1 
8 
10 
9 
3 
1 

8 
7 
3 
4 



FACTS AND OPINIONS REGARDING FOOTBALL 15 

Professor James Barr Ames of Harvard University 

The successful football player must possess strength 
and endurance ; he must think and act quickly; he must 
be brave ; he must control his temper in the face of 
strong temptation and be always ready to subordinate 
his individual action to the interest of the team as a 
whole. 

The merits of a game demanding these qualities will 
be obvious to every one. Are they outweighed by the 
objections most frequently urged against the game, 
namely, that it is physically dangerous and that it inter- 
feres too seriously with the scholarship of the players ? 
I think they are not. There is certainly weight in these 
objections. The valuable statistics which you are col- 
lecting will doubtless show that common opinion greatly 
exaggerates the physical risks of football. At the same 
time I think football players will generally agree that 
the game hitherto has been unnecessarily dangerous. 
The changes recently formulated b}^ tlie " Rules Revision 
Committee " will go far to minimize the physical perils 
of the game. If further intelligent legislation follows, 
as experience shows its necessity, and if parents and 
school and college authorities adopt the principle, already 
in force in many institutions, that no one shall be 
allowed to play football until his physical condition has 
been passed upon favorably by a competent physician, 
the objection of physical danger will, I believe, lose 
almost all its force. 

The figures of your forthcoming book will be the best 
possible indication of the effect of football upon the 
scholarship of the players. I am convinced that in 
recent years the demands of football upon the time and 
attention of the Harvard players have been excessive, 
and have worked to their detriment both as players and 
students. The salutary rule that no student who is on 



16 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

probation for neglect of study shall take part in a public 
athletic contest has not worked so effectually in foot- 
ball as in the other sports, since the returns of the 
November examination have not always been made 
before the final contest. But this difficulty will doubt- 
less be remedied without delay. 

Extract from Report of Colonel O. H. Ernst, the Superin- 
tendent of the TJ. S. Military Academy, on the subject of 
Athletics at the Academy, December 12, 1893 

... It may be assumed at the outset that the 
physical development of cadets is sufficiently pro- 
vided for in the regular curriculum, or, if not, that 
improvements in that direction should be made in a 
more systematic way than by the mere encouragement 
of voluntary athletic sports. If needed at all, they 
should be made to apply to all cadets. Football is to 
be considered as a recreation and a sport, and not as 
a means of instruction. The important questions con- 
cerning it are : 1. What are its effects upon scholar- 
ship ? 2. What are its effect" "ipon discipline ? 3. Is 
it unduly dangerous to lift id limb ? 4. Is it too 
expensive ? 5. Should the annual match game between 
the cadets and the cadet midshipmen be permitted? 

I. Effect upon scholarship. — Any innocent amuse- 
ment which during the hours set aside for recreation 
will take the mind of the cadet absolutely away from 
his books will benefit him. He will return to his studies 
refreshed and invigorated, and the net result of his 
day's woi'k will be greater than if his entire time had 
been devoted to them. Fc '^ accomplishes this 
object more completely than ^ ^ttior known game. 
Its effects in that respect are not confined to the actual 
players, but extend to practically the entire corps of 
cadets. From one-quarter to two-thirds of the corps 
may be seen looking on or taking part in the daily 



FACTS AND OPINIONS REGARDING FOOTBALL 17 

practice games, while with all it is a subject of absorb- 
ing interest and conversation, and at the match games 
on Saturday afternoons nearly the entire corps are 
present, exhibiting every sign of the most enthusiastic 
enjoyment. Is the excitement too great ? Does it 
extend beyond the hours of recreation and interfere 
with studies ? If it does the effect should be noticeable 
among the thirty-one cadets constituting the first and 
second teams and supernumeraries. These have been 
in regular training, have devoted all their spare moments 
since the 1st of September to practice, and have un- 
doubtedly given more thought to the game than any 
other cadets. To obtain specific information with 
reference to their progress in studies, I addressed to 
the members of the academic board a circular letter. 
I invited them at the same time to express their views 
upon the subject of athletics in general as now practised 
at this place. The perusal of their replies shows wide 
differences of opinion. 

Of the players in the first class, in the case of Cadet 
Bn. there was not muo^ "oom for further improvement 
for he was already at c^'hear the head of his class, being 
first in general merit at the last June examination. He 
held his own. Of the others, two showed decided im- 
provement, one held his own, one showed loss in two sub- 
jects and gain in two, with a preponderance of loss, and 
one showed decided loss in all. In this class, upon the 
whole, was more gain than loss. 

In the next class two cadets lost places in both 
branches of study. Pnth of them had been over last 
year's course twio'-' ng been turned back in June, 

1892. As is nsilal" Hi oi*oh cases, a decided fall in class 
standing occurred after entering upon a new course of 
studies, and would have occurred independently of foot- 
ball. All of the others gained in one branch of study 
while losing in the other, or held their own in one while 
3 



18 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

gaining in the other, or gained in both. Among them is 
Cadet St., who stands second in his class in philosophy 
and who held his own. In this class the gain in scholar- 
ship exceeded the loss. 

In the third class are twelve players. Of these, three 
gained in both branches of study, and four gained in one 
while losing in the other. Among them was Cadet Sn., 
who stood first in general merit at the last June examina- 
tion. He lost standing. In this class the loss exceeded 
the gain. 

In the fourth class are four players. As this class had 
not been arranged according to merit at the beginning 
of the term, there are no figures for determining the 
effect upon them, except in the case of Cadet C, who, 
in the opinion of the professor, will be first in his class 
in mathematics, and who has the fourth best mark in 
English studies. 

The figures given are of course not to be taken in any 
individual case as a direct measurement of the effects of 
football. The greater or less aptitude of the student 
for the new studies taken up in September always 
causes many variations in class standing. But taken as 
a whole, they indicate that the general effect of the 
game upon the scholarship of those taking the most 
active part in it is not injurious. There are exceptions, 
but that is the general result. If not injurious to 
these, then the general net result to the entire corps 
of cadets must be beneficial, if my assumption be correct 
that complete distraction from books during the hours 
of recreation is beneficial. 

This does not include the subsequent effect of the 
match game at the end of the season. 

II. Effect upon discipline. — There are no figures 
which can be used as an indication of the effect upon 
discipline as in the case of scholarship, but there are 
some considerations from which certain conclusions may 



*?1 

FACTS AND OPINIONS REGARDING FOOTBALL K 

be drawn. The discipline of the corps has been good and 
remains good. With very few exceptions the offences 
are of a minor character, due to boyish heedlessness. I 
cannot see that they are any more or less in number 
than they were formerly. But there are two offences 
of not uncommon occurrence which have for many years 
defied the efforts of the authorities to eradicate them — 
smoking, and hazing new cadets. 

At one time even the attempt to prevent smoking 
was abandoned, and for many years the practice was 
permitted. It is now forbidden, but the difficulty of 
enforcing the regulation is as great as ever. The train- 
ing rules which the football players adopt while in 
training prohibit smoking. Tliis by demonstrating the 
value of the regulation cannot but aid in its enforce- 
ment. 

Hazing new cadets has been the object of severe re- 
pressive measures for many years. Time and again the 
authorities have flattered themselves that it was eradi- 
cated, but new instances have not been slow to follow. 
Among the cadets who went to Annapolis this year were 
four members of the fourth class. They had been 
selected by the cadets themselves. The search among 
the new cadets for their superior phj'-sical qualities 
which this implies cannot but aid in reducing the ten- 
dency to hazing. 

At first glance it might seem that if any special priv- 
ileges were granted to football players it would be 
favoritism, which would be resented by other cadets 
and would be injurious to discipline. It must be re- 
membered that the players are selected by the cadets 
themselves, and not by the authorities. It is probable 
that many distinctions might be made without causing 
the non-players to consider the players more favored 
than themselves. As a matter of fact, however, the 
only distinctions have been that the players were pro- 



1 
jO football facts and figures 

vided witli a special training table in the mess hall, were 
excused from marching to supper in order to take that 
meal a little later than the others, and were permitted 
to go to Annapolis. 

The special training table constituted a daily object 
lesson in the effect of sober living upon the human 
frame, which can hardly fail to be of much practical 
value. 

Dress parades for the entire battalion were omitted 
during November, That ceremony at that season loses 
much of its practical value, on account of the cold, 
since overcoats and benumbed fingers are not favorable 
to precision. 

In all other respects the full pi'ogramme of military 
and academic duty has been carried out by all. 

The officers of the Academy have as a rule taken a 
lively interest in the game, and have contributed largely 
by voluntary subscriptions toward paying its expenses. 
This has produced a kindlier feeling by the cadets 
toward their officers, which I think is favorable to dis- 
cipline. The minor punishments in the way of depriva- 
tion of recreation hours become more potent as the value 
of those hours in the mind of the cadet is increased. 
The surplus animal spirits of the young men finding a 
vent in football are much less likely to find it in mis- 
chievous pranks. 

Upon the whole I conclude that the game is an aid to 
discipline. 

III. Danger to life and limb. — The post surgeon has 
prepared, at my request, a statement of the casualties 
which occurred during the months of September, 
October, and November in football, riding, and gym- 
nastics. Fifty-two casualties occurred in football, 
of wliich 9 were serious ; 40 casualties occurred in 
riding, of which 2 were serious ; 9 occurred in gymnas- 
tics, of which 1 was serious. Ultimate recovery is 



FACTS AND OPINIONS REGARDING FOOTBALL 21 

expected in all cases. During November, 11 casualties 
occurred in football, and 34 in riding. A new 
class began riding in November. Among players else- 
where a number of fatal accidents during the same 
period were reported in the public press. With its 
present methods and rules the game appears to be 
dangerous to life and limb, but probably not much more 
so than riding, and much less so than coasting in winter 
or swimming in summer. This feature has attracted 
the attention of observers elsewhere, and the sentiment 
appears to be general that the methods of play must be 
changed. It is probable that the game will be less 
objectionable in that respect hereafter than it is now. 
It is perhaps unnecessary to state that the brutality 
which has been reported to have occurred at some places 
does not exist here. As played here the game is rough, 
with an element of danger, but not brutal. 

IV. Expense. — The total amount expended this year 
in athletics was $4219.71, of which 13623.70 was devoted 
to football, including the cost of the training table, 
$506.20 over and above the cost of ordinary board. Of 
the football expenses the cadets paid $1438.40, includ- 
ing the training table, and the remaining $2185.30 was 
contributed by the Army Officers' Athletic Association, 
or by subscription of the officers and professors stationed 
here. This latter subscription fell heavily upon some. 
Clearly cadets cannot afford to play football without 
some outside assistance. There appears, however, to be 
no difficulty in procuring such sums of money as may be 
necessary. 

V. Should the annual match game betvjeen the two 
National Academies be permitted P — What has been said 
of the effects of football upon discipline and scholarship 
refers to the general effect during the three months prior 
to the match and not to the match itself. The latter 
has undoubtedly for some days a bad influence upon 



22 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

both. The excitement attending it exceeds all reason- 
able limit. Whether the injurious effects at this time are 
sufficient to counterbalance the good effects obtained 
previously is somewhat a matter of speculation. I am 
inclined to think that thus far they have not been, 
but I should expect the excitement over this match, 
if it should be regularly established, to increase from 
year to year and eventually result in unmistakable 
injury. 

The argument in favor of the match is that some 
kind of match game with a foreign team at the end of 
the season is considered necessary to keep up the interest 
in the game. The season's work (or play) is the prepara- 
tion for a contest. It is quite impossible for the cadets 
to compete upon equal terms with the students of other 
institutions such as Harvard, Yale, or Princeton (though 
they have played this year with teams from two of them), 
for the reason that those students give much more time 
to practice than the cadets can give. Tliis points to the 
Naval Academy as their natural and only real competitor. 
To stop the annual match will be to remove much of the 
vitality from a game which plays an impoi'tant and, as I 
believe, useful part in the life of a cadet. 

The four matches which have been played have 
engendered an intense rivalry, not without a shade of 
bitterness, which does not tend toward improving the 
relations between the two services. 

The match constitutes a distinct and, in my judgment, 
dangerous departure from the traditions of this institu- 
tion. The corps of cadets are required to accomplish 
moi'e work in a given time than any other set of young 
men anywhere. They accomplish this without extra- 
ordinary exertion because of the regularity of their lives 
and the continuity of their application. Absence from 
the restraints of West Point, brief though it be, renders 
them irksome for some time thereafter. For this reason 



PACTS AND OPINIONS REGARDING FOOTBALL 23 

it has always been the rule to grant very few leaves of 
absence. With the exception of the furlough at the end 
of the second year, they are never given except in cases 
of emergency, and to a few specially meritorious cadets 
at Christmas as a reward for exemplary conduct. This 
system receives a violent shock from the match game. 
While thirty cadets are allowed to go to Annai^olis to 
play football, it will not be easy to say to the cadet 
whose motile r is ill or whose sister is to be married that 
the rules of the Academy forbid his absence for even a 
day. 

Conclusions. — My conclusions are that football as con- 
trolled here has been beneficial to scholarship and an aid 
to discipline, and should receive a proper degree of 
encouragement ; but that the match game with the 
Naval Academy has done much to undo these good 
results, and will, if continued, entirely undo them, and 
being objectionable otherwise should not be permitted 
to recur. 



From, the ^^ American Journal of the Medical Sciences,^^ 
September, 1894. Football and the physique of its devo- 
tees from the point of view of physical traininy. By 
Henry G. Beyer, M. D., Ph. D. {Johns HopMns Uni- 
versity), Surgeon, U. S. Navy 

We deem ourselves rather fortunate in succeeding 
in getting the measurements of five visiting " teams," the 
success being almost entirely due rather to the winning 
and persuasive ways of some of my more diplomatic 
associates on the athletic committee than to my own 
efforts. 

The points that were more especially taken notice of 
were the age, height, weight, lung-capacity, and " total 
strength " of each individual player, and the position 
which he occupied on the field. 



24 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

1. Height. As regards height, I may at once dismiss 
this item by stating that there never was any appreci- 
able change produced in it during the above-mentioned 
period of two months' training. 

2. Weight. As regards the influence of football on 
the weight of the players, a most decided increase has 
been noticed. The average increase in weight whicli 
was observed and calculated from seventeen players, 
examined in the fall of 1882, immediately before and 
after the period of training, with regard to tliis point, 
was found to be 3.6 kilos, or 7.9 pounds. The same 
observations, being repeated on twenty-five pla^^ers in 
the fall of 1893, resulted in showing an average increase 
of 3.28 kilos, or 7.2 pounds. 

3. JLung- Capacity. On October 15, 1892, the first 
examination of seventeen players was made with regai'd 
to their lung-capacities, and at the end of November the 
second examination was made. The result of these two 
examinations was quite surprising, for all the men, 
except two, came back with the same lung-capacity on 
their second examination that they had shown on their 
first. The only increase that had taken place was noted 
in the two half-backs — who, as is well-known, have to 
do a great deal of running during the game. Thinking 
that it was possible that the lung-capacity increased in 
the beginning of the period of training, and that I ought 
to have taken my first observations on the 1st instead of 
the 15th of October, the same observations were re- 
peated this year (1893) on the twenty-five players. The 
results show that the twenty-five players, after a two 
months' course of training on the football field, exhibit 
an increase in lung-capacity of eleven cubic inches, or an 
average increase of 3.9 per cent, of their original lung- 
capacity. Notice, however, that the percentage amount 
in increase in weight is 0.8 higher than that of the 
lung-capacity, a circumstance of some weight in its 



FACTS AND OPINIONS REGARDING FOOTBALL 25 

relation to the subject of " vital index," or the result 
of a simple division of lung-capacity by weight, and 
to which we shall again refer later on. 

4. Total Strength. The average increase in total 
strength of the seventeen players examined in the fall 
of 1892 was 105 kilos, or about 16.4 per cent, of their 
original strength, and that of the fifteen players noted 
in the fall of 1893 amounted to 85 kilos, or 14,2 per 
cent, of their original strength. On examining more 
closely into the distribution of this increase in strength 
we have found that about 75 per cent, of it extends 
over the lower extremities and the back, showing that, 
although all the muscles are engaged in playing the 
game, there is a quantitative difference of degree. 

Before leaving the subject of total strength, I must 
add what appears to me to be a point of considerable 
interest. It might quite naturally occur to the reader 
that this so rapidly acquired strength was but a tempo- 
rary affair, and would vanish again as quickly as it was 
acquired. As I was myself under this impression, I 
searched my records, and found that I was but somewhat 
mistaken. In the seventeen players of last fall (1892) 
the maximum loss six months after the close of the 
season was only 5 kilos, or less than 1 per cent. Thus, 
no matter what we may find with regard to the staying 
qualities of the strength acquired through other sports, 
football strength, according to these observations, seems 
to stay pretty well. 

Summary. — In summing up the facts ascertained in 
the above observations, we obtain as a result of two 
months' football training on the seventeen players ex- 
amined in the fall of 1892 : (1) No increase in height, 
(•2) no increase in lung-capacity, (3) an average increase 
of 4.9 per cent, in weight, and (4) an average increase 
of 16.4 per cent, in total strength. In the twenty-five 
players examined in the fall of 1893 we get : No increase 



26 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGUBES 

in height, an average increase of 4.7 per cent, in weight, 
an average increase of 3.9 per cent, in lung-capacity, and 
an average increase of 14,2 per cent, in total strength. 
In both series of observations we have to record a 
decrease in vital index. 

In some studies made on fifty naval cadets, and pub- 
lished in the report of the Surgeon-General of the Navy 
for 1893, the following average increases were noted as 
a result of six months' systematized exercise in the gym- 
nasium, viz. : 0.5 per cent, in height, 1.3 per cent, in 
weight, 3.8 per cent, in lung-capacity, and 32 per cent, in 
total strength. The average vital index at the beginning 
was 0.067 and at the end of the term 0,066, consequently 
there was a slight decrease. The average age of the 
fifty cadets was exactly eighteen years. 

According to the measurements in our possession of 
eight oarsmen, including about two months' hard train- 
ing for a boat race during the spring months of 1893, 
we are enabled to record the following avei'age increases, 
viz.: 0.2 per cent, in height, 4.7 per cent, in weight, 7.3 
per cent, in lung-capacity, and 28 per cent, in total 
strength. The vital index at the beginning of the 
period at hard training was 0.066 and at the end it was 
found to be 0.068 ; there was, therefore, a slight increase 
in the latter. 

The figures shown, so far as they may be of value, 
would lead one to conclude that both the regular sys- 
tematized gymnasium drill and boating would furnish 
results superior to football. Boating, considering the 
large percentage of increase in lung-capacity and total 
strength which it here shows, must be considered the 
best training of them all. 

Has the football field exercised a certain natural selec- 
tion in the clioice of its devotees, to complement that 
of the "coach," or are our fine athletic players indeed cre- 
ations de novo of the football field alone ? We have in 



FACTS AND OPINIONS BEGABDING FOOTBALL 



27 



our possession an abundance of material to show that 
the sport attracts superior types of men from the very 
start. 

(1) The average age of the thirty-six football 
players is but two months ahead of that of the fifty 
percentile grade cadet, and represents, therefore, the 
average cadet so far as age is concerned, in accordance 
vi^ith the fact that players are admitted from all the 
four classes alike ; (2) in height we find the football 
player in average 4 per cent, superior ; (3) in weight 
he is 28 per cent, superior ; (4) in lung-capacity 21 per 
cent., and (5) in total strength 49 per cent, superior to 
his average fellow. 

Compare him with the fifty percentile grade of 
the Yale students from tables published by Seaver, 
and we find that the average American football 
player is (1) one year and one month older, (2) 
2.8 per cent, taller, (3) 20 per cent, heaviei', (4) has 
10 per cent, more lung-capacity, and (5) is 40 per 
cent, stronger than the fifty percentile grade of Yale 
students. 

Making, finally, a similar comparison with the Am- 
herst student of the fifty percentile grade, and using 
for this purpose the tables but recently published by 
Drs. Hitchcock and Seelye, we find a similar superi- 
ority: 





<0 

< 


1. 

"S 

a 


i 


p. 

a 
V 

B 



o 


m 

o 

d 
15 


Av. American football player 
Amherst student, 50 per cent. 


Yrs. mo8. 
20 8 

22 6 


1778 
1720 


76 
61.7 


4.55 
3.77 


662 

482 


77 
2330 


Superiority in per cent. 


.... 


3 


23 


20 


37 





28 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

What, now, it may be asked, have we learned from 
these observations ? Do they prove that gymnastic 
exercise is a mere fad, and that football is wortliless ? 
They do neither ; but on the contrary, if they prove 
anything, they plainly show that, if we have placed the 
football ideal unadorned on the balance, we have not 
found it wanting ; and while it cannot be considered 
the best game in the world, and much of its vaunted 
superiority is due to popular clamor conjured up by the 
newspapers, it must, nevertheless, be considered as one 
of the best games extant. Based on these observations, 
we may feel ourselves on much firmer ground than we 
did before, even if we have to limit our arguments to 
the point of physical training alone, and cannot from 
the nature of our enquiries-extend our conclusions to the 
other manifold beneficial results produced by the game, 
the investigation of which must be relegated to the psy- 
chologist. 

The greatest danger that threatens football, by unan- 
imous consent, seems to be the introduction of the 
professional element into its constitution. This, again, 
must be looked upon as the direct consequence of news- 
paper clamor. 

« Unless, therefore, our college faculties will get to- 
gether and arrange a special selective course leading up 
to the degree of Bachelor of Athletics, thus dignifying 
the game at once as a- prof ession, which, I fear, they are 
not prepared to do, we will have to use a certain amount 
of discrimination and play football with more moderation, 
confine the game to the undergraduates and to the col- 
lege campus if it is to continue to live. 

But how about the number of injuries and even deaths 
that have been recoi'ded as having been produced on the 
football field ? While it must be admitted that acci- 
dents may occur here as elsewhere, and in spite of all 
proper precautions having been taken, it is, nevertheless. 



FACTS AND OPINIONS REGARDING FOOTBALL 29 

probably also true that, were all the circumstances sur- 
rounding these cases known, all the recorded deaths, 
without an exception, would be found traceable to gross 
carelessness of one kind or another. At any rate, since 
we cannot eat our pie and have it too, we shall have to 
pay a certain amount for the good we derive from it ; 
and, if we should find that our investment does not turn 
out a gold mine, we may be satisfied with a silver one. 
But, certainly, all the injuries produced on the football 
field, in games played between gentlemanly and well- 
matched players, that have come under our observation 
have been amenable to treatment and have resulted in 
perfect cure. 

The one precaution mentioned by President Warfield, 
viz., to make the medical director in charge of physical 
training omnipotent in excluding boys who are unfit to 
play in tliis game by reason of certain pliysical condi- 
tions or injuries existing, cannot be too strongly urged 
upon college faculties and those who wish to see the 
game survive. 

Investigation by C. W. Whitney, ^^ Harpers Weekly" 

The futile crusade against football into which the 
editor of the New York Evening Post has recentlj'' 
flung himself with well-developed hysteria and a Roget's 
Thesaurus would hardly excite comment were it not 
that undoubtedly many worthy readers of the Post are 
as ignorant — if less irascible — on the subject as is the 
editor. I pass over the diatribe of a Philadelphia medi- 
cal trade journal as too absurd even for censure. Mr. 
Godkin must have been put to sore straits for argument 
to quote such a hodgepodge of misstatement and igno- 
rance. Nor is it my purpose here to enter into a lengthy 
refutation of the Posfs many absurd misstatements about 
the game. Any student of the times, any common- 



30 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

sensed man who keeps his eyes and ears open, knows 
perfectly well, without my telling him, that football 
and all athletics have done and are doing magnificent 
work for the physical development and moral better- 
ment of our boys and young men all over the country. 

If Mr. Godkin really doubts this I commend to him 
the editorial columns of the New York Sun and Tribune, 
where recently much good matter on this subject has 
been printed ; and further, to him and to all who ques- 
tion my statement, I commend the Superintendent of 
the Young Men's Christian Association, which, with its 
branches all over America, has been one of the most 
active workers in the good cause. But these facts are 
patent to all save the editor of the Post, who writes : 
" But the fact is that, however valuable football may 
be as a means of moral and physical discipline, none of 
the universities profit by it." 

The veriest tyro of a reporter on the Posfs staff could 
have told his chief better ; the faculties of Harvard, 
Yale, Princeton, and of every college in the country 
would have been glad to tell him how athletics, of which 
certainly football is an integral part, have elevated the 
general morale of the undergraduate body by absorbing 
the animal spirits that formerly were wasted in dissipa- 
tion. Still further, the reporter could have informed 
Mr. Godkin that American and English universities 
have none of the duelling and sanguinary scandals 
common in European colleges, where football and 
athletics are not practised ; he could also have told 
him that only so recently as December 1, the Bavarian 
War Minister at Berlin publicly declared it to be im- 
possible to do away with duelling ; that if it were 
abolished " men would have recourse to fisticuffs," and 
I might add that if football were introduced, there 
would be no need for legislation on duelling. 

A man argues himself an ignoramus when he dis- 



FACTS AND OPINIONS REGARDING FOOTBALL 31 

putes the value of athletics at our schools and univer- 
sities in the moral and physical development of boys 
and young men. There is no need of a sermon on this 
subject to any thinking fatlier who remembers his own 
boyhood. 

Wading through the columns of vituperation which 
the Post and some of the provincial papers on its ex- 
change list have printed against football, I am able to 
discover but three points at issue : 1. Does the game 
play an important part in the education of the boy ? 
2. Is it brutal ? 3. Is the tide of popular favor setting 
against it ? 

I have already answered the first. We must have 
the game ; we need it. As for the third, pick up any 
Western, Southern, or Eastern paper in season and note 
the attendance at the game and the amount of space 
the newspaper gives to it. 

Now as to the game being brutal. Distinctly it is 
not, as played by thoroughly trained and competently 
coached teams. It may be and in some instances has 
been made brutal, but the same men could make any 
game brutal. Much has been made by the Post over 
several sad deaths resulting from accidents on the foot- 
ball field. From all I can learn, however, only one 
received his hurt in a scrimmage, and he was not in 
condition to play. Most of the "serious accidents" 
result from a reporter's desire to wax sensational and 
fill space. 

There ai'e two charges which may be brought against 
the game and sustained : one, that as it has been grow- 
ing in the last few years it absorbs too much time of 
the students ; the other, that there is not enough open, 
and too much closed or " mass," play. 

Both of these matters will be remedied in the coming 
year. 

Any game that develops so enormously and so rapidly 



32 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

as has football must of necessity require new rules, as 
experience teaches their need. But these are to be 
made only after very careful and thorough considera- 
tion by practical, level-headed men, and not by a hysteri- 
cal editor who knows nothing of the game, or of the 
grand work athletics are doing for Young America. 

Wedges, and all mass plays, flying plaj^s, and inter- 
ference, will be legislated upon before the next season 
opens. 

And again I wish to propose the University Athletic 
Club to all colleges as a balance-wheel in this kind of 
legislation. I regard the club, with its board of gov- 
ernors composed of the most prominent and ablest alumni 
advisers, as the balance-wheel of college sport. 

It is my opinion that this is the very time when it 
should act, by calling a congress of university men 
competent to consider and advise on football legisla- 
tion. The opinions of fifty men such as the club could 
gather would be invaluable. 

As for the time spent on the football field, that also 
will receive attention, and next year we shall see the 
game develop along more skilful and more interesting 
lines. 

Let us have an end, therefore, to all this sensational 
hullabaloo about the game being tabooed. Football 
will not die out, never fear ; it is more firmly implanted 
in our affections than ever ; it will continue to be im- 
proved as we learn by experience, and athletics will 
continue to fill an important role in making us " the 
people." 

While the Evening Posfs football editor, Mr. Godkin, 
has been allowing his imagination to run riot in sensa- 
tional accounts of the appalling " brutality of football," 
I have been busy gathering statistics throughout the 
country of just how frightful have been the " shocking 
calamities " of this "terrible" game, and how wide- 



FACTS AND OPINIONS REGARDING FOOTBALL 33 

spread the "wave of indignation " about which he has 
been telling his readers. I have written to a trust- 
worthy and painstaking correspondent at the repre- 
sentative colleges of the different sections of the 
country, and I will let them tell the story in their own 
language. 

University of Virginia : " The men are in very good 
condition, nor have we had any kind of an accident 
that laid any one off, notwithstanding the fact that our 
grounds are very hard." 

University of Michigan : " We have had no serious 
accidents here this fall. Several men have suffered 
with bruises and sprains at various times, but all are 
nearly well now, and there is not one of them who will 
not be perfectly sound in a few weeks. We have had 
this fall ten different class and department teams, and 
played the hard game taught by Yale coachers." 

University of Wisconsin : " Our record as to acci- 
dents this year is a clear one. Each man has played in 
his place from the beginning of the season till the end, 
and each has come off without a hurt. During the 
season we have substituted in games just three times, 
and the men laid off at those times mended in a day or 
two so as to go back to practice. In practice games we 
have been just as fortunate, no one having received any 
injury of account on our campus, I say fortunate, but 
it is rather through good handling. Mr. Davis of 
Princeton has been with us this year and conducted the 
training of our men. From my experience and obser- 
vation on the gridiron, I believe that football is no more 
dangerous or brutal than most other athletic games 
when played, as it should be, with proper instruction. 
There have been two fatal accidents from the game in 
the West this season, but both came from gross care- 
lessness. One was at Delevan, and the man killed was 
a deaf mute, and, of course, out of his sphere, as a 
3 



34 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

football player needs all his five senses. The other was 
a Dulutli high-school boy, who was untrained, and knew 
really nothing of the game. I feel I can say that the 
men have been improved fifty per cent, in appearance 
from what they were when they commenced training in 
the fall. They have all stood the season's work without 
any apparent inconvenience, have kept up their work in 
the university, and are among the best students in it." 

University of Iowa : " Our team began training 
September 24, and has had many hard games ; but 
our men, although not in the strictest of training, have 
finished the season's work in good physical condition. 
But one of the players has had a day's sickness since the 
season opened. The only severe injuries sustained by 
our team were a broken nose, received by a ' scrub ' in a 
practice game, and an injured ear. The men are now 
in the best physical condition they have been in this 
year." 

Lake Forest University (Illinois): "Our accidents 
this year have been few, and not of any serious nature. 
In seven regular games only two players have received 
any injury, and both of these were not serious. Sprain- 
ing the ankle or the knee sometimes happens, but its 
effects only last for a day or so. No one has ever been 
seriously hurt on our teams in four years. Our boys 
have stood the season sj^lendidly, and express themselves 
as feeling better physically for the time spent at the 
game." 

Portland, Oregon : " The only football we have here 
on this northwestern coast is furnished b}^ the athletic 
clubs of this city, and Tacoma and Seattle, Wash- 
ington. The games this season have been better than 
any ever seen here. The football spirit has increased 
much, and the standard of the game been raised. There 
have been no accidents except the ordinary bruises and 
sprains." 



FACTS AND OPINIONS REGARDING FOOTBALL 35 

Denver, Colorado : " The Athletic Club team went 
into training the 1st of September, and the season lasted 
until Thanksgiving Day, the team playing nine hard 
games. In all these we have only once been actually 
compelled to retire a man from the game. He was 
tackled hard, and in falling struck on his shoulder and 
dislocated it. He has entirely recovered, and is able to 
play as well as ever now. The same experience applies 
to our opponents, as I think none of them, including 
the 'varsities of Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Colo- 
rado, Boulder, Golden, and Baker, suffered any serious 
hurt in any of the contests. I might add that every 
member of the team expresses himself as pleased at 
being able to play the game, as he feels it so beneficial 
to health and spirits. Personally, I believe it to be one 
of the very best forms of exercise, and that its benefits 
to the participants are as great mentally as physically, 
to say nothing of the moral effect of the training." 

University of Tennessee : " We had some very hard 
games this season. The only injury that amounted to 
anything was a sprained wrist, and this did not lay our 
man off but one week. In our Thanksgiving Day game, 
which was the hardest fought game I ever saw, no one 
was hurt, sustaining only the bruises generally received 
in practice. None of our opponents ever received any 
injuries to amount to anything." 

Northwestern University (Illinois): "Last jesiv we 
had a team and nine substitutes. Early in the season 
one of the players whose nose was slender had it broken. 
It was set, and he was able to play in three days, pro- 
tected by a nose guard, and has not been troubled since. 
There were three men who had sprained ankles, and a 
few were bruised some on their legs and body, but none 
so that they could not play all season. This year two 
men were hurt early in the season. One wrenched his 
leg ; the other was a man who dissipated and could not 



36 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGUKES 

be made to train, but had a magnificent physique. He 
went into the game and played hai'd, receiving a bruise 
that made him quit practicing. No one on the second 
eleven, or college, has been badly hurt. Twelve have 
played on the team and as substitutes for two years, and 
have received hardly a scratch, never having had time 
called for them. Six of these have played in every 
game for two years. I think that the spirit to win at all 
cost overshadows the true object of the game, namely, 
physical and mental culture. This spirit is what some- 
times pollutes college athletics, puts hired athletes in 
athletic clubs, and prompts one to twist legs or break 
fingers while underneath a scrimmage." 

Dartmouth (New Hampshire): "Our football team 
has had a very successful year. Very few accidents 
have happened, and we have been deprived of the ser- 
vices of only one man on this account, whose injury is 
not serious. I am fully satisfied that the training has 
been healthful to the men on the team, and in no in- 
stance has it been injurious." 

University of Kansas : " In regard to accidents and 
the general condition of our team, I would say that, out- 
side of a couple of sprained ankles and a broken nose, 
our accidents among thirty- four men amount to nothing. 
Our men are in better condition now than at any time 
during the season." 

Vanderbilt University (Tennessee): "We have been 
exceedingly fortunate this season as far as accidents are 
concerned. Only two men have had noses broken, and 
several received slight sprains or bruises. We are now 
in splendid physical condition, and I include in this not 
only the 'varsity eleven, but all the 'scrubs,' amounting 
to about forty, which is due largely to good handling." 

Wake Forest College (North Carolina) : " In regard 
to the number of players injured here, I will state that 
three have sprained their ankles, and one an arm. In 



PACTS AND OPINIONS REGARDING FOOTBALL 37 

the case of the sprained arm, it was the second day that 
the man had ever played, and was due to his lack of 
knowledge in falling when tackled. I do not hesitate 
to say that the cause of the three sprained ankles was 
because of the very rough condition of our grounds. 
In one instance especially an end rusher fell and sprained 
his ankle without coming in contact with either ball or 
player. We have plaj^ed match games with neighbor- 
ing institutions for seven years, and never, without a 
single exception, has a member of the team broken a 
bone or received other than very slight injury. In addi- 
tion, it pleases me to state that the members of the team 
have at all times received the highest honors bestowed 
by the literary societies, and have taken a fine stand in 
their class-rooms." 

Williams College (Massachusetts) : "During this 
season we had two men stop playing. One had his 
collar-bone broken, and the other hurt his leg and was 
advised to stop. Both have entirely recovered. Our 
centre was off for a week with a knee out of joint, 
and a few other men were hurt slightly, but when the 
season closed every one of them was in better condition 
and playing better ball than at any other time, and after 
our last game, with the exception of the half-back, who 
did most of the rushing, there was not a man laid up 
from accidents or injuries. When I compare this season 
with last in base-ball, I find that, with the exception of a 
broken bone, there were no more men hurt on the eleven 
than on the nine, and since I have been in college (four 
years) there has been no man who received permanent 
injuries. It seems to me that the trouble comes to men 
who are not in regular training." 

Brown University (Rliode Island): "The general 
physical condition of the Brown team has been very 
fair, although I certainly am sure we have experienced 
our share of accidents. A number of the resrular eleven 



38 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

have been laid up regularly at one time or another, but 
we have finished the season in good shape." 

Amherst (Massachusetts) : " The team stood the season 
well. We have been entirely free from serious acci- 
dents, broken bones, and the like. The principal inju- 
ries to the men have been slight muscle bruises and only 
temporary affaii's. We have met very heavy teams this 
year, where we were clearly outclassed in weight, but in 
spite of this our injuries were comparatively slight. I 
can only emphasize the fact that the team has stood the 
season well, and every man on it is better for his train- 
ing. I find that people who never saw the game are 
the ones who cry loudest against it." 

University of North Carolina : " Fifty men started 
out training for our team this year. Of them all thirty 
stuck it out through the season. We had numerous 
accidents, none of which were of a serious nature, and 
all have entirely recovered. Of course the regular num- 
ber of sprains and bruises came to the men, but at the 
close of the season they were in the best physical condi- 
tion they had ever been in. We have lazy men (in- 
different students) that play football, but the men who 
ai'e looked to as the best are usually those who rank 
well in their classes. It has been my experience that 
those who are most violent against football are usually 
men who are entirely ignorant of the game, and don't 
want to learn." 

Kansas City (Missouri): "Football in the Missouri 
Valley has taken great strides toward popularity in the 
past season. The work of all the teams shows a decided 
improvement over that of last season, and after careful 
investigation I find that while the teams have had the 
usual accidents — bruises and sprains — that are expected 
in a game where there is so much muscular effort, all 
finished in the best physical condition that the men have 
ever been in, and fathers are as enthusiastic over foot- 



FACTS AND OPINIONS REGARDING FOOTBALL 39 

ball as the boys themselves, because of its keeping their 
sons from the usual dissipation," 

San Francisco (California): "Ten thousand people 
saw the game between the Leland Stanford University 
and the University of California on Thanksgiving T>a.y, 
and there is no longer any doubt about the popularity 
of football out here on the Pacific Coast, and among our 
most cultured people. I have carefull}^ looked into the 
physical condition and accidents of not only these two 
universities, but of the teams of the Olympic and Reli- 
ance Athletic Clubs, which are the two largest on the 
Coast, one in San Francisco, and the other in Oakland. 
In the two latter cases the players ai*e principally business 
men. There have been the usual accidents, though the 
average of bruises and sprains has been small, but I 
found all the men in better physical condition at the 
end of the season than they had ever been, and greatly 
improved by the play. At the universities the football 
players this year have been among our best students. 
Football on the Coast has done a great work in checking 
youthful dissipation." 

Near at home the story is about as these letters 
show it to be throughout the country. I cannot think 
of any serious accident that has befallen any mem- 
ber of Princeton, Yale, Harvard, University of Penn- 
sylvania, Lehigh, or Cornell elevens. Princeton played 
through the season without the loss of a man ; Yale 
went through three of the hardest games any eleven 
ever played without calling on a substitute until the last 
part of the second half of the Princeton game, when 
one of their half-backs, who has had a weak ankle nearly 
all the season, was retired. Harvard began and ended 
the season with the same men — Waters and Emmons 
excepted. Waters had a weak knee half the season, 
and was thrown out of much practice ; he should never 
have gone into the game at Springfield. Emmons was 



40 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

overtrained, nervous, and half sick, and was hurt in the 
Pennsylvania game. 

Here is a fact for Mr. Godkin and other uninformed 
carpers to bear in mind : Looking back over ten years 
of football, we find the hardest games of the year — 
those between Harvard, Yale, Princeton — to have re- 
corded the least injury to players. And here is another: 
After careful compilation at Harvard a year or so ago, 
it was found that of the three thousand students the 
standard of excellence of athletes for the four years of 
their course was above the average in class marks. 

Dr. Loveland's Investigation 

Obtaining the addresses of 250 players of Yale, Har- 
vard, Princeton, and Wesleyan, 1881-1890 (a few were 
substitutes), I sent them circular letters of enquiry. 

About seventy-five per cent, of the men promptly 
responded. 

I selected the players of the last decade because 
I wished to reach those who had been out of the sport 
long enough to get over any transitory effects of the 
game, and also to get at men who had been out in the 
world long enough to be able to give a fairly unpreju- 
diced report of their condition. 

It must of course be remembered that the game of 
to-day is not that of five and ten years ago. But in 
some respects the older game was the rougher, with its 
bull-dog fight, alias " maul in goal," and its slugging 
and throttling pleasantries. Moreover, the sharp con- 
cussion and violent falls of individual players in tack- 
ling one another have always formed a prominent 
feature of the game just as they do to-day. And 
" mass plays," although not quite so " mass "-ive and 
under other names, have always been played, excepting 
perhaps, the first few years of the eighties. 



FACTS AND OPINIONS REGARDING FOOTBALL 41 

The first question was to me the most impovtant. My 
chief object was to ascertain how many of tlie injuries 
that I was seeing as phj'^sician of a football association 
remained extant in the after-life of the player. More- 
over, I had heard it claimed that football players would 
remember the sport in after-years by the weaknesses 
that would crop out. Incidentally I hoped to learn 
something along this line. 

Of the 187 men replying, 39, or a little over 20 per 
cent., reported some permanent injury. The injuries of 
course varied greatly in severity and seemed to have 
greater significance if classed into (a) those seriously 
inconvenient and {b) those slightly inconvenient or dis- 
figuring. An example of (a) is a loose ligament in the 
knee joint ; of (b) an enlarged finger joint or a broken 
nose. Eighteen or nine and a fraction per cent, were in 
the first class, and 21 or eleven and a fraction per cent, 
in the second class. Wesley an raised the percentage of 
the first class somewhat. Yale, Harvard, and Princeton 
together has a percentage of eight and a fraction, while 
Wesleyan's ran up to nearlj'- 13. Thus is raised a ques- 
tion. Wesleyan has only 200 men to pick from and 
therefore puts men in the field who are inferior in mus- 
cular physique to the representatives of larger colleges. 
Again, she has played these men not alone against their 
equals of other small colleges, but often against those 
superior to them in weight and strength. Is her larger 
number of casualties due to these facts ? 

I have classified the injuries according to their loca- 
tion on the body. 



42 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

CLASS A. INJURIES BELOW THE KNEE 

Sprained ankles, 31 

foot, 1 

Broken leg, ........ 3 

" "small bone," 2 

Rupture of tendon of leg, 1 

" blood vessel of leg, .... 3 

Flesh wounds of shin 4 

Strain of leg, 3 

Total, 47 

CLASS B. INJURIES OF KNEE 

Strain of knee, 18 

Water on knee, ....... 5 

Dislocated knee, 3 

" patella, ...... 1 

Fracture of cartilage of knee, ..... 1 

Total, 37 

CLASS C. INJURIES OF THIGH 

Strain of thigh muscles, 7 

Bruise of groin, 1 

Total, 8 

Classes a, b, and c contain eighty-two injuries. Thus 
a majority of all injuries reported were inflicted on the 
lower extremities. The ankle fares the worst, with the 
knee joint a close second. I feel sure that sprained 
ankles must be much less numerous at present, owing 
to the admirable ankle guards that are now in vogue. 
Shin guards also must do away with flesh wounds of 
the shin, of which four are reported. The same guards 
must also, by distributing along the leg the force of 
blows, save some broken legs. The knee is still unpro- 
tected. It is impossible to shield it by any kind of 
sufiicient guard that will not interfere with motion. 
Padding does much good, but cannot protect from the 
severe wrenches which are so common. Water on the 



FACTS AND OPINIONS REGARDING FOOTBALL 



43 



knee must be more common than reported above. Most 
any player has himself seen more than five cases. 
Under strain of knee I have classed all sorts of 
wrenches of more or less severity. The following is 
an important item. Nine, or one-half the men who 
replied yes to the first question and were classed as 
seriously inconvenienced, were suffering from injured 
knees. No football rules can protect the knee. The 
ingenuity of the surgeon in supplying protective ap- 
paratus must come to the rescue if the knee is to be 
saved. 



CLASS D. INJURIES OF TRUNK 



Fracture of sternum, 

" ribs , 

Bruised breast bone, 

Internal injuries 

Kick in back, . 

" abdomen, 

Intercostal muscles torn, 

Floating ribs separated, 

Dislocation of clavical from sternum. 

Strain of back, 

Total, .... 

CLASS E. INJURIES OF UPPER EXTREMITY 

Broken scapula, 

" clavicle, 
Sprain of shoulder, 
" elbow, 

" wrist, . . . , 
Rupture of wrist tendon, 
" Broken hand," 
Dislocated thumb, , 
Broken thumb, .... 
Broken finger. 
Dislocated finger, 
Thumb joints enlarged, . 
Finger joints enlarged. 



Total, 



1 
3 
1 
1 
2 
1 
1 
1 
1 
4 

16 



3 
3 
3 
1 
3 
1 
1 
1 
1 
3 
1 
1 
1 

22 



44 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 



CLASS F. INJUEIES OF HEAD 



Concussion of brain, 
Blow of head, 
Kick in head, 
Broken nose. 
Scraped nose, . 
Broken cheek bone, 
Incised wounds of face. 
Broken teeth. 
Loosened teeth, 
Black eye. 
Ear torn, . 
Ear drum ruptured, 



Total, 28 

The nose " gets tliere " before the player, and, as we 
should expect, is the most punished part of the head. 
However, broken noses are things of the past since the 
ferocious nose beak has been worn. 

If we reckon the sprained ankles, flesh wounds of 
shin, rupture of blood vessels of leg, broken noses and 
scraped noses as preventable by apparatus, we have 
a total of fifty injuries, or just one-third of those re- 
ported. This is a fair estimate, as we have left out 
" broken legs," which must be much guarded against 
by a proper shin guard. 

Doubtless many men have been overtrained to their 
knowledge, but without appreciable injury. Over- 
training has been of several kinds — of the stomach, of 
the muscular system (including the heart), and of the 
general system. Some have claimed that the last 
variety occurs when men are allowed to play too many 
years. Overtraining of all kinds is being rapidly 
eliminated in these daj^s and does not present the most 
serious aspect of the subject of football. Of the 187 
replying 11 said they overtrained, 3 were doubtful, and 
3 omitted to answer the question. The 11 overtrained 



FACTS AND OPINIONS REGARDING FOOTBALL 45 

\ the following ways : 1 always felt tired while 
.»aining except during a game ; 2 specified indiges- 
tion ; 1 found it difficult to accustom himself to a 
sedentary life after leaving college ; 1 had muscular 
twitchings in his legs, when walking, for four years 
after leaving college. Of the 11, 7 specified their diffi- 
culty as temporary. As stated above, probably different 
answers would have been sent in if overtraining without 
injury had been the subject of the question. To about 
one-lialf the circulars I appended the question, " Did 
you gain weight while training ? " It occurred to me 
after having sent out the fii'st half that the fact that 
a man gained weight while training would be pretty 
clear evidence that he was not overtrained, although 
this would prove nothing negatively, as a man could 
lose weight in many instances without being over- 
trained. Of 90 men, 47 gained ; 9 did not lose ; 4 lost 
at first and gained later ; 2 lost fat ; 1 lost if worried ; 
11 lost ; of the 11 one-half gained after the season 
ended. So that, on the theory of weight, 62 at least 
out of 90 did not overtrain. 

Of the 187, 179 reported a good effect on the general 
health. Many took occasion to be very emphatic ; 5 
were uncertain ; 1 saw no effect ; 1 saw no harmful re- 
sults ; 1 thought the effect was bad, but in connection 
with too much other athletic and college work. Ques- 
tion IV. Physical development. 180 returned a good 
effect ; 3 saw no effect ; 2 were doubtful ; 2 couldn't 
separate the effect from that of other sports. I did not 
ask for specifications as to the parts develojped, but of 
those that specified voluntarily, by far the larger num- 
ber reported a general development. Quite a number 
were impressed with their chest improvement. 

A surgeon would probably decide against the game, 
but the above statistics are too meagre in several ways 
to warrant any positive conclusions. It was not 



46 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

expected that the statistics would be conclusive, but it 
was hoped they would throw some light on the subject, 
and be suggestive and perhaps a stepping-stone to other 
investigations. My experience shows me that there are 
many difficulties in the way of such an investigation. 
And it must be acknowledged that the surgeon must 
proscribe many other sports in the same way. Many 
deaths result every year from hunting, sailing, and 
horseback and carriage riding; many knees and ankles 
are sprained every month by the bicycle, by cross- 
country runs, and even by tennis and pedestrianism. 

It must also be admitted that the subject is not fully 
discussed when the surgeon leaves it. The surgeon is 
a sort of materialist and is fond of material well being. 

One reply claims that sports like football prevent 
dissipation. There is doubtless much truth here. 
Youthful energy must and will find a way to expand 
itself. It may be expedient to allow this energy to 
expend itself on football. The game of football is 
to-day the natural expression of the tastes of vigorous 
overflowing youthful energy. The same can be said of 
all college pranks, including hazing. Natural tastes 
often have to be curbed or even completely subjugated. 
And student life in our universities to-day is becoming 
more self-controlled. This sport remains as an outlet for 
ovei*flow animal life. Something will be broken some- 
where or somehow, if it is not allowed to escape. 

Another line of suggestion claims that youth courts 
risks, and that the hot blood of youth cannot develop 
muscle and bone without destroying some muscle and 
bone any more than the energy of maturity can accom- 
plish intellectual and commercial results without destroy- 
ing some brain tissue along with its possessor. Almost 
any thing in life that is worth doing has its risks and 
uses up physical and mental material. No one will 
claim that youth should take no risks when it simply is a 



FACTS AND OPINIONS REGARDING FOOTBALL 47 

preparation for mature life which is full of " risks." If 
our nation survives, the man of the future must be able 
to elbow his way among rough men in tlie foul air of 
primary elections ; he may need courage enough to take 
his part in vigilant and safety committees and the like ; 
he may need to " tackle " an anarchist now and then and 
perliaps oftener. Where shall he develop his courage? 
Can he do it where there is no physical danger ? If the 
game of football has a moral and mental side to it, if 
it furnishes good ideals of courageous manhood and of 
physical excellence to those who play it and to those 
who look on, if it can rescue the dude from his naraby- 
pambyism, then play football. Guard it from profes- 
sionalism and extremes ; improve it. 

Opinion of the Physician to Bugby School * 

With respect to the much-abused and healthy game 
of football, the chief outcry, periodically raised, is 
against the game as played according to " Rugby rules." 

That accidents do happen at football, and when played 
under " Rugby rules," is beyond question. But to 
whom do they usually happen ? Almost invariably to 
grown men who have excelled in past years, but who 
have now lost their elasticity, are out of training and 
flabby, and have increased in weight and lost the old 
knack of playing. To these players the game may be 
injurious — that is to say, the good obtained may not 
counterbalance the risk incurred ; though even of this 
I am not sure. But I trust the time is far distant when 
football, as a winter game, is to be removed from our 

♦Extract from writings of Clement Dukes, M. D., B. S. 
Lond., Member of the Royal College of Physicians of London ; 
Physician to Rugby School ; Senior Physician to the Hospital of 
St. Cross, Rugby ; Howard Medallist of the Royal Statistical 
Society of London. 



48 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

schools, unless some equally active and exciting game is 
substituted. 

The outcry against all games, whether football, row- 
ing, riding, or tennis, for example, should not be levelled 
against the games themselves, but against those who are 
not in a fit condition to play at the particular moment. 

The man who is unwise enough to think that, because 
he has been the best football player at school, he can 
always play hard, without previous and prolonged train- 
ing, is sure to meet with accidents. He who, having 
once been in his university eight, assumes in subsequent 
years that he may, without frtsh training, row hard in 
a " scratch " race with impunity, is certain to over-try 
his heart — with a popular clamor against boating, as 
the result. Those who incur the sprains of the rider 
and of the lawn tennis player are almost invariably those 
who ride hard and play hard at the beginning of the 
seasons, when they are out of training and condition. 

I maintain, from nearly twenty-three years' experience, 
that football, as played at our schools, by young, elastic, 
light boys, highly trained, and always at it, is — where 
beai'-play and the spleen of the bully are kept down by 
the conscientious reporting, without fear or favor, to 
headquarters, of every infringement of legitimate 
play — a great gain to schools and attended very rarely 
by accidents, and those seldom of a serious nature. The 
way in which accidents most frequently happen when 
playing football at school is when boys play with men ° 
and thus the " sides " are not of the same size and 
weight. 

My experience does not enable me to recognize either 
the justice or prudence of parents in raising an outcry 
against football, as played at our schools. That it has 
its accidents, like, but not worse than, cricket, boating, 
jumping, the gymnasium, and every other boys' game, 
no one will gainsay ; but its benefit to boys far out- 



FACTS AND OPINIONS REGARDING FOOTBALL 49 

weighs its evil effects, and all who know anything of it 
from experience, and not from hearsay, will admit this. 

Drs. White and Wood in ^^ North American Review " 

Let us regard intercollegiate athletics as supplemen- 
tary to a well-devised S3''steni of physical education 
such as ought to exist at every university and college. 
The noteworthy contests (exclusive of track athletics 
which tend to develop specialists in whom one set of 
muscles is over-developed, but wliich are of undoubted 
value to the student b Aj) are those which take place 
on the river, the base-ball field, the tennis court, and 
cricket ground. Which of them best fulfils the require- 
ments of an ideal exercise ? 

Rowing, as practised to-day, develops chiefly the 
muscles of the back and hips ; it does little for the front 
arm, practically nothing for the pectoral muscles. Base- 
ball makes I it little demand on the left arm or the left 
side of the chest. Cricket and tennis are also usually 
"right-sided" games. None of them is to be compared 
with football in the direction of bringing all muscles in 
play. And, moreover, in none of them except rowing 
is the preliminary training so valuable in strengthening 
the great involuntary muscles, those of the heart and 
diaphragm, observed with any thing like equal strictness. 

Certainly whatever physical good can be received 
from any form of college athletics can be obtained from 
football, while above all others it tends to develop self- 
control, coolness, fertility of resource, and promptness 
of execution in sudden emergencies involving perhaps 
personal danger. In other woi"ds, no known game 
compares with football in the development in the indi- 
vidual of those qualities which, while they are some- 
times spoken of as the "military virtues," are of 
enormous value to tlieir possessor in all the struggles of 
4 



50 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

life. A further advantage of football over the other 
forms of college athletics is that it appeals to a much 
larger proportion of the men. Thus, probably not more 
than fifty men in any way take part in the annual train- 
ing for crews at Pennsylvania ; but during the present 
season, 1893, what with the 'varsity team, the scrub 
teams, the various class teams, and the number of vol- 
untary teams made up of the students, at least 160 men 
have played the game, many of them daily. About the 
same number played at Harvard. 

But to those of us who believe that in the life of a 
boy the occurrence of injuries not severe enough to 
leave permanent traces is not necessarily an evil, but 
often even a positive good by encouraging fortitude, 
manliness, and high spirit, the question as to the danger 
of football in our colleges is only to be answered by 
statistics. 

About this time last year the question of the occur- 
rence of fatal or of permanently disabling injury to any 
football player at these four institutions [Harvard, 
Yale, Princeton, and Pennsylvania] for the previous 
decade was submitted by one of the writers to the 
special authority on the subject in each faculty. The 
replies, still in his possession, were sent after careful 
investigation, and established conclusively the fact that 
no instance of any permanent injury to a player had 
occurred in all the long series of contests waged during 
those ten years on the football field. We ask that until 
contradictory and well-sustained evidence be brought 
forward this statement be accepted on the authority of 
Dr. Sargent of Cambridge ; Dr. Seaver of New Haven ; 
Dr. Macdonald of Princeton ; and Dr. White of Phila- 
delphia. We may add that Dr. Hitchcock has written 
us that no player has ever suffered permanent injury at 
Cornell. We know that so far as intercollegiate foot- 
ball among these universities is concerned, the fore- 



FACTS AND OPINIONS REGAKDXNG FOOTBALL 51 

going is true of 1893 also, and we think this fact greatly 
lessens the force of the objection based on the physical 
dangers of the game. 

We have had, as has been said, about 160 men play- 
ing football during the year 1893 at Pennsj'lvania, and 
without a single broken bone or a seriously injured 
joint, or any accident disabling a player from continuing 
either his football or his academic duties for any length 
of time. We do not mean to deny the existence of 
physical danger, but we believe it possible to minimize 
it and yet retain all the most useful features of the 
game, and we are urgent for such a revision of rules as 
shall bring this to pass. We do insist, however, that 
the spectacular character of football and the frequency 
of sprains, wrenches, fractures, and other severe or 
minor injuries occurring in the presence of such mul- 
titudes have together led to unintentional and not 
unnatural exaggeration of the seriousness of football. 
The accidents of aquatic sports, of horseback riding, of 
shooting, are vastly beyond and above those of football. 
In 1890, 4442 males were drowned in the United States, 
and 2336 died from gunshot wounds ; a large minority 
of the former died in the pursuit of aquatic sjjorts, 
while, probably, a large majority of the latter died from 
accidents occurring with firearms made or used for 
sport. We have not had time to get together the 
statistics of aquatic sports in the colleges, but it is note- 
Avorthy that within two or three years Princeton lost, 
by drowning, Brokaw from its baseball team, and Lamar 
from its football team ; while Cornell, where aquatics 
are cultivated so widely and successfully, has in the 
same way lost at least three of its athletes in the present 
year. 

As to the effect of football upon the individual 
student who enters the team, the most frequently 
repeated objection is that the intellectual is being sacri- 



52 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

ficed to the physical, and that the man who plays foot- 
ball must almost of necessity neglect his studies. This, 
again, as we want clearly to point out, is not an objec- 
tion to football per se, but an objection to all college 
athletics. As a matter of fact mucli of the preliminary 
training for football is done during the vacation period, 
and certainly more hours are given by the men on the 
crew in the scholastic period to athletic duties than are 
required of the football candidates. 

As this article is not a general defence of college 
athletics, we must content ourselves with the statement 
that, after careful investigation, we do not believe foot- 
ball has had the effect of lowering the general average 
academic standard of either players or onlookers at any 
of the above mentioned universities. There has not 
been time to secure all the actual figures, but such 
good observers as Professor Richards of Yale and 
Professor Sloane of Princeton are convinced that while 
the scholarship of the most active players may suffer a 
little a few weeks before the close of the season, it loses 
nothing whatever by the end of the year. 

Of the four or five members of the Pennsylvania 
football team of 1892 who have now graduated, one, the 
captain, won in competitive examination the greatest 
prize the university offers to its medical class, a position 
in its hospital ; another, who was first honor man of his 
class, has been made professor in the university, and 
still another was on the honor list. In this year's team 
the same proportion seems likely to continue. At 
Princeton two of the eleven are on the honor list and 
five are " far above mediocrity." At Yale the average 
standing of the sixteen members of the academic 
department who have been connected with the football 
team this term as players and substitutes is higher than 
the average standing of tlie best class in scholarship 
that has ever graduated there. At Cornell Professor 



FACTS AND OPINIONS REGARDING FOOTBALL 53 

Hitchcock finds that "the men on the intercollegiate 
athletic teams have a standing 1.2 per cent, better than 
the average of the whole college." If we were select- 
ing from any college the young men most likely to 
endure tlie strains of business or professional life in this 
country, and to score successes, we would be disposed 
to estimate at much more than 1.2 per cent, the actual 
working superiority of the football players over their 
classmates. 

It is not a little thing that an American community 
shall cease for a moment its worship of the golden calf, 
even if it find a no more worthy idol than a football 
player, for that plaj^er is an impersonation of long-con- 
tinued self-denial, of severe toil, of stoicism under pain, 
of persistent struggle for an object which is but an 
ideal. 

We believe that it is better for the people of North 
America to cultivate rather than repress this sudden 
growth of national sport. To cultivate is to prune, and 
we are among those who ask earnestly, not only for the 
suppression of rough and foul play, but for such 
modification of the rules as shall lessen the danger to 
life and limb. It seems to us that the first of these 
alterations should lead to the elimination of the so-called 
" mass play." The old open game, more beautiful, less 
dangerous, perhaps more scientific, should, if possible, be 
brought back. 

We believe it to be essentially the best and manliest 
of all intercollegiate sports. 

From H. H. Almond, of Loretto, in the ^^ Nineteenth 
Century." ^'Football as a Moral Agent " 

When the complaint was made to a well-known 
head-master that British boys talked far too much about 
football and cricket, he answered, " And what do French 



54 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

boys talk about ? " His reply was to the point ; but 
he might well have added that it was extremely impor- 
tant for all those who had to do with boys to have a 
thorough acquaintance with the subjects about which 
they did talk, even if that talk was overdone. 

Football has always existed at our greater schools. 
But these schools have greatly increased in numbers, 
and others of a similar type have sprung up all over 
the country. Now these schools do not pretend to sup- 
ply a better intellectual education than may be obtained 
in the heart of our large towns. Their main purpose is 
to deliver boys at the critical age of growth, who are 
receiving a complete education, from the sedentary 
habits almost inseparable from life in great cities. 
Football, being the best available form of winter exer- 
cise, has consequently spread from the older schools to 
many others. It has been played under many forms, 
but these are reducing themselves to two. Both of 
these are becoming more organized, scientific, and com- 
petitive ; and it may safely be asserted that, wherever 
either of them has taken fair root, it is winning the 
heart of boyhood more than any other winter game or 
occupation. Nor is this new enthusiasm confining itself 
to schools. The overcrowded rivers of the universities 
are being relieved by the goals ; clubs are springing 
up all over the country; and every available piece of 
ground near many of the great manufacturing towns is 
already being used for football. Does not this move- 
ment require some recognition and some guidance ? 

The first national match by Rugby rules was played 
at Edinburgh in 1870. The first really national match 
by Association rules was played at Glasgow in 1872. 
Since this time the progress of football has been uninter- 
rupted, and I may say tremendous. I have, e. g., known 
of two Scotch schools which played eight fifteens each 
on the same day against each other. The result of the 



FACTS AND OPINIONS EEGAEDING FOOTBALL 55 

first only would be telegraphed ; and nearly every 
country village in many counties would be the scene of 
unreported matches and games. In all large centres, 
howevei", an extra staff of telegraphists is employed on 
Saturdays for football events alone. These facts all 
tend to show that the players are a very small proportion 
indeed of those who are taken into the open air by foot- 
ball and who take a lively interest in its results. As an 
instance of this, I may mention that the final tie for the 
English Association Cup in 1893 was played at Man- 
chester before about 40,000 persons. 

Now to assert that all this is good news is to say 
what never could be said with truth about any great 
movement or interest among men. But it is certainly 
most significant news. There are, of course, a large 
number of people who will say that the physical danger 
of football outweighs all possible advantages. 

In my own personal experience, I have had to do with 
football for thirty-five years. At no school with which 
I have been connected has there ever been a death ; I 
can remember one broken leg among boys, and one 
among men, and I think three broken arms. Nor do I 
recollect hearing of a single directly fatal accident 
among Scotch clubs which play Rugby rules, and only 
of one indirectly fatal accident. The experience, I may 
add, of the greatest living aiithority on school health. 
Dr. Clement Dukes of Rugby School, is similar to 
mine. My impression is, though I cannot adduce facts 
to prove it, that the majority of the serious accidents 
arise out of the rough and foul play which seems to be 
a necessary result of professionalism and of the allied 
system of cup ties. Whenever the game ceases to be 
played in a sportsmanlike spirit, plaj^ers are to be found 
who wantonly injure opponents with a view of putting 
them hors cle combat when this can be done in such an 
underhand way that malicious purpose cannot be posi- 



66 FOOTBALL PACTS AND FIGURES 

tively proved. Generally, from all the evidence I can 
collect, the following conclusion seems justified : Ama- 
teur football, when the public opinion of the players 
condemns foul play and the infliction of wilful injux-ies 
as criminal and odious, is not more dangerous than 
almost any winter game or sport which is active 
enough to promote a vigorous muscular development 
and high animal spirits. It is less dangerous than 
hunting, and infinitely less dangerous, in the long run, 
than abstinence from open-air exercise on the part of 
those who lead a generally indoor life. In a word, by 
developing the chest and the limbs, by quickening the 
circulation and purifying the blood, football saves far 
more lives than it destroys. 

It is an incalculable blessing to this country that such 
a sport is so enthusiastically beloved by almost all that 
part of our boyhood whom nature has endowed with 
strong passions and overflowing energies. Its mere 
existence and the practical lessons which it preaches 
are worth all the books that have been written on youth- 
ful purity. I can say for myself that, under the cir- 
cumstances of the luxurious and self-indulgent habits 
in which boys are increasingly brought up at home, the 
constant panic lest they should suffer any pain, the 
absence of apprehension lest their moral and physical 
fibre should become feeble by disuse, and the tendency 
of the examination system to make the development of 
character a secondary consideration, I would not care 
to face the responsibility of conducting a school were 
there not rooted in it, as I hope, an imperishable tradi- 
tion, an enthusiastic love of football. 

It is not necessary to dwell on the tendency of foot- 
ball to foster that virtue that is most closely allied to 
purity, and without which no nation could be either 
great or truly pi-osperous, viz., the virtue of courage. 
Some such influence is sorely needed. What is called 



PACTS AND OPINIONS REGARDING FOOTBALL 57 

the modern spirit is not favorable to courage. An 
instance of this comes readily to hand in the prevalent 
sentimental objection to corporal punishment, and in 
favor of punishments like lines and detentions, which 
keep a boy indoors when he ought to be out of doors, 
or like penal drill, the indirect evil of which is, I think, 
even greater. But the football scrummage is a great 
educator. I know boyisli opinion pretty well, and can 
bear witness to a wholesome reaction among them 
against all punishments which are not corporal, and 
generally against any unmanly shrinking from pain — 
a feeling which I have known to show itself in a preju- 
dice against the use of anaesthetics in minor operations, 
as well as in other ways. 

After this expression of opinion, which is possibly 
shocking to the Zeitgeist, I hope that I may to some 
extent propitiate this spirit by saying that football, 
when taken by the hand and guided, may be made the 
training ground of a virtue which is so far modern that 
it has not yet acquired a distinctive name. I mean the 
duty of keeping one's self in vigorous health, founded 
on a knowledge that this is generally possible. 

From this point of view it is well for this crowded 
little island of ours that the athletic movement has 
assumed sucli a universal and irresistible form as it has 
done in the case of football. 

I have never yet known a genuine Rugby forward 
who was not distinctively a man. 

Extracts from ^^The Yale Courant " and "Scribner^s 
Monthly " 

7%e Yale Courant in an editorial, October 17, 1868, 
speaks thus of base-ball, which was just then acquiring 
great popularity : " We are not an admirer of the 
national game. As to the amount of amusement to be 
obtained by this means it is just about what might be 



68 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

extracted from a certain number of sand-bags, basswood J 

clubs, and cannon-balls by educated, enlightened men ^ 

under other circumstances. On the question of bodily- 
damage we would suggest that the immense increase of 
accident insurance companies is probably due to no 
other cause, and if the mania does not presently cease the 
country will he without able-bodied tnenP 

Scribner''s Magazine of June, 1872, after relegating 
base-ball to the ranks of gambling and rowdyism 
characteristic of regattas and horse races, makes use of 
these words : " During these years the game of croquet 
has been steadily gaining ground, and to-day its de- 
votees not without justice claim for it the distinction 
of the true and only national game of America," 



{ 



CHAPTER II 

STATISTICS OF UNIVERSITY AND SCHOOL PLAYERS AS 
COLLECTED BY THE COMMITTEE 

Letters were sent out : 

1. To every player on the Harvard, Princeton, and 
Yale teams since the introduction of the Rugby game 
in 1876 (one of these lists included all substitutes, the 
other two did not, but the proportions turned out 
approximately the same, however). 

2. To every player on college teams of 1893. 

3. To every school where a team was organized. 
Results : Up to April 10 something over one thousand 

answers had been received, showing : 

PHYSICAL effect 

Statistics of physical effect of the game of football 
upon players (in comparison with Dr. John Edward 
Morgan's statistics of benefit and injury attributable to 
boating). 

Harvard, Yale, and Princeton players, 1876-1894 in- 
clusive. Number of answers received, 337 in all. 

Number of men who considered themselves benefited, 328 
" " " " injured, 3 

t' " failed to reply, . . .2 

" " considered it had no effect . . 4 

Other colleges (1893 players). Number of men 359 
in all. 

Number of men who considered themselves benefited, 357 
" " " " injured, 1 

" " " it had no effect, . 1 

59 



60 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

Schools (1893 players). Number of men, 364 in all. 

Number who were considered injured, . . .10 
" " " not affected . . 6 

" impossible to say, or indefinite, . . .13 

MENTAL EFFECT 

Yale, Harvard, and Princeton, 33V in all. 

Number who considered themselves benefited, . 320 

effect bad, ... 2 

" nil 13 

No answer, 2 

Other colleges, 359 in all. 

Number who considered themselves benefited, , 343 

" " effect bad, ... 7 

" undetermined, . ... 8 

" who considered effect nil, . . . 1 

Schools, 364 in all.* 

Number on whom the faculty considered the effect bad, 7 
" " '* " not affected, 6 
" " " " indefinite, un- 
determined, 13 

PERMANENT INJURIES 

So much has been said regarding the great extent of 
these injuries and the seriousness of them that we give 
the exact words of every man who replied otherwise 
than "No" to the question of the permanency of any 
injury received. 

Of permanent injuries to Yale, Harvard, and Prince- 
ton players from 1876-1893 inclusive there were twenty- 
three cases. These were the only ones where men have 
not answered ilatly that they have no present reminder 
of their football injuries. 

* Some of the head-masters answered only generally, not speci- 
fying for each player. 



UNIVERSITY AND SCHOOL PLAYERS 61 

These replies are as follows : 

Harvard 

No. 595. Played 8 years, says, "Physically the very 
best and long lasting. Mentally enabled rae, and still 
does enable me, to do a larger quantity of mental work. 
Injury, a strain of the wrist which might affect my 
chances of getting on a 'varsity team, but for ordinary 
purposes is no defect. 

No. 602. Played 8 years. Tooth knocked out. Con- 
sider both physical and mental effect good. 

No. 680. Played 11 years. Broken nose, affected one 
nostril, but since bored out. Both physically and men- 
tally very good. I think the mental training in con- 
fidence, cool-headedness, judgment, quickness in action, 
determination, and self-control far outweighs any risk 
of accident. 

No. 1189. Played 1 years. Physically and mentally 
very good. Had tooth extracted by a fellow catching 
his glove in it. Tooth replaced ; several years after, 
however, it was again knocked out. 

No. 1194. Played 9 years. Broken ligament in thumb. 
It is weaker than other. Physically and mentally good. 
I am much more bothered by a wrist sprained by being 
thrown from a horse than by all my few football 
injuries put together. 

No. 667. Played 6 years. Injury to ribs. Feel it 
somewhat when overtired. Physically and mentally 
decidedly good. 

No. 648, Played 8 years. Injury to ear, deaf, and 
broken wrist. Latter partially recovered. Physically 
and mentally decidedly good, also morally. 

No. 542. Played 6 years. Broken ligament in knee. 
Mentally and physically bad." See letter.* 

* This letter is published later in this book. 



62 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

No. 626. Played 7 years. Broken nose. Physically 
and mentally most empliatically good. 

No. 588. Played 10 years. Broken ligament in knee. 
Physically and mentally good. 

No. 636. Played 3 years. Broken ligament in knee. 
Knee occasionally slips. Physically and mentally de- 
cidedly good. 

No. 680. Played 12 years. Broken nose. Impaired 
breathing somewhat. Physically good, mentally bad. 

Yale 

No. 1137. Played 6 years. Broken ligament binding 
down sternal end of right clavicle. Effects most excel- 
lent, both physical and mental. 

No. 1034. Played 9 years. Wrenched knee, not en- 
tirely recovered. No special effect upon me except to 
give me greater nervous energy. Was twenty-one years 
old when I entered college. 

No. 124. Played 5 years. Injury to knee and broken 
clavicle. Physically bad, mentally good. 

No. 164. Played 5 years. Dislocation of collar-bone. 
Played next season. Good both physically and mentally. 

No. 163. Played 3 years. Never lost a day from 
injury. Left knee a little vs^eak. Physically and 
mentally good. 

JPrinceton 

No. 891. Played 3 years. Sprained knee, think the 
weakness permanent. Physically and mentally un- 
doubtedly good. 

No. 923. Played 6 years. Injured knee ; still affects 
me. Effect physically good, mentally can't say. 

No. 21. Played 5 years. Killed nerve of tooth. 
Tooth subsequently extracted, but artificial crown 
placed on. Stump satisfactory. Physically and men- 
tally good. The advantages of the game in the way 



UNIVEESITY AND SCHOOL PLAYERS 



63 



of physical and mental and moral development justify 
the risks assumed. 

No. 893. Played 7 years. No injury on a college 
football field. Had nose broken at school by another 
boy's "cussedness." Physically and mentally eminently 
good, 

No. 904, Played 4 years. Muscle kicked off arm. 
Physically and mentally good. 

No. 33. Played 4 years. Slight injury to nose. 
Physically and mentally I consider it very good. 



STANDING IN STUDIES 



Princeton 
since 1874 : 



men Avho played in first class matches 



First honor men, that is, first in class. 
High (above 95 per cent.), . 
Second (above 90 per cent.). 
Good (above 75 per cent.), . 

LovF (50 per cent.), 37 

Failed 

139 



Football. 


Base-ball. 


1 


2 


23 


13 


31 


17 


29 


30 


37 


34 


8 


3 



99 



Harvard. — Team of 1893. Total number of grades, 
163. 

Grade A, . . , . 3 

" B, 23 

" C, 68 

" D 42 

" E, 29 



168 



Yale (in decades) : 

Sport. 

Boating, 



Base-ball, 
Football, 



1.2 per cent. 


13.5 


" 


41.9 


" 


25.2 


" 


17.3 




Tears. 


Standing on 
scale of 4. 


1869-78 


2.559 


1878-88 


2.52 


1869-78 


2.595 


1878-88 


2.406 


1869-78 


3.508 


1878-88 


3.677 



64 



FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 



Yeai" of 1893. Of sixteen football players (academic 
standing) the average standing was higher than the 
average of the highest class ever graduated. 

University of Pennsylvania. — Men of college depart- 
ments have no marks. They are registered as passed 
with distinction, passed with honors, not passed. 

Team of 1890 

No. 1, 93.4 per cent. 

"2 96.5 

•' 3, . . . . . . . 64.8 

"4, 95.7 

"5, 79.1 

" 6, 
" 7, . 



9, 
10, 
11, 
13. 



76.6 

81.25 " 

87.3 

Not passed. 

Passed. 

Passed. 



"13 90.34 per cent. 

"14, Passed with honors. 

"15, Passed. 

Team of 1891 
No. 1 84.9 per cent. 



3, 

3, 

4, 

5, 

6, 

7, 

8, 

9, 

10, 

11, 

12, 

13, 

14, 

15, 

16, 

17, 

18, 



81.0 

78.0 

93.4 

95.7 

73.1 

93.6 

86.0 

90.3 

80.66 " 

81.25 " 

61.75 " 
. 80.3 
Passed with honors. 
. Not passed. 

Passed. 
. Passed. 
Passed with distinction. 



UNIVERSITY AND SCHOOL PLATERS 



65 



Team of 1892 



No. 



1, 
2, 
3, 
4, 
5, 
6, 
7, 
8, 
9, 
10, 

11, 

13, 
13, 
14, 
15, 
16, 



. Not passed. 
Passed with honors. 
Passed. 
Passed. 
One condition. 
Passed. 
80.6 per cent. 
90.3 
93.1 
75.0 
76.6 
80.3 
93.4 
73.1 
98.0 
87.3 



West Point, 1893. — Four classes, A, B, C, D. 

"In the first, A class, the gain in marks (scholarship) 
during the football season exceeded the loss. 

" In the second, B class, the gain in marks during the 
football season exceeded the loss. 

"In the third, C class, the loss exceeded the gain. 

"In the fourth, D class, four players in the class, but 
as they were not graded or marked previous to the 
season, figures are impossible except in case of one 
cadet. He, in the opinion of his professor, will be first 
in his class of mathematics, fourth in English studies. 

" On the whole the effect is, therefore, upon those 
taking the most active part in football, not injurious." 



CHAPTER III 

LETTERS PEOM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY AND HEAD- 
MASTERS 

I "WAS much complimented by your letter asking me 
about football ; but as I resigned my mastership of 
Adams Academy on August 1, 1893, I felt I had no 
right to pronounce as a school-master on the matter, 
I have therefore put your letter in the hands of my 
successor, Mr. William R. Tyler (Harvard, 1874). 

I wish you would correspond specially Avith him. He 
was one of the Harvard team that began intercollegiate 
football by playing with McGill University, and 
declined the captaincy of the Harvard team in his 
senior year. He also played on the Adams Academy 
team in 1874, '75, '76, '77. 

The revival of football started at my table in 1870. 
Football was forbidden by the faculty of Harvard Col- 
lege from 1858 (I think) to 1870, on account of the 
class fights. In 1870, I, being Latin tutor, organized 
a boarding-table at my house for students who had been 
my personal friends in all the four classes. Most of 
them were graduates of the Boston Latin School, where 
the old American football had been played for indefinite 
years. Of these Tyler was my special friend. Two or 
three of the young men came to me and asked if 
I thouglit that the faculty would allow football to be 
resumed, on an engagement by the students that it 
should be a real game and not a class fight. I referred 
the matter to the faculty, and had the petition granted. 
The game was organized on this condition, with a team 



LETTERS FROM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 6*7 

for all classes. It was practised on the old traditional 
lines, very much, I believe, like the Association game 
in England. After about two years a challenge came 
from McGill University, which played the Rugby game, 
and the Harvard team agreed to adopt that form for the 
sake of the match. 

Tyler can tell you of the match ; but I wish whatever 
credit belongs to the man under whose auspices the 
game was revived. 

Very truly yours, 

William Everett. 

Adams Academy. 

Dr. Everett handed to me your letter of enquiries as 
to the effects of football in Adams Academy, and the 
blanks for answers from the school eleven. 

I cannot answer your questions as to my own opinion 
with regard to the effect of the game on our boys, 
without going rather into detail as to my own connec- 
tion and acquaintance with the game. 

I played half-back on the Harvard team (fifteen then) 
in May, 1874, against the team of McGill University, 
Montreal. This was, I think, the first game of Rugby 
football ever played in the United States. In the 
autumn of that year I came here to teach, and for a 
number of years organized, ti-ained, and played on the 
school football team. I thus have had very unusual 
opportunities for studying the game and its effects in a 
school. 

Iir my opinion there can be no doubt that the effect 
of the game pliysically is admirable, both on the actual 
members of the classes and on the school generally, in 
arousing and maintaining an interest in an active out- 
of-doors sport which can best be played at a season 
when it is difficult to keep boys out of doors enough. 
Rough, and occasionally brutal, as the game must be, I 



68 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

can recall but very few cases of serious injury to any of 
my boys in all the nineteen years the game has been 
played here, and no case, I think, of permanent injury. 

I am convinced, too, that the moral effect of the game 
is on the whole good, though the football partisans are 
inclined to exaggerate it, or rather to ignore the objec- 
tions to it. The game certainly promotes courage, 
self-restraint, a wholesome disregard of slight physical 
injuries, and a clear appreciation of the value of dis- 
cipline and subordination. On the other hand, the evil 
moral effects seem to me obvious from the nature of the 
game. It tends to exalt mere physical strength and 
size unduly, and to brutalize a naturally brutal boy by 
offering practically unlimited opportunities for unneces- 
sarily rough play, and high rewards for successful 
violence. 

• The development of the game recently in the direc- 
tion of " tricks " and surprises, the tendency to exam- 
ine every rule with a view to evade the spirit of it if 
the latter can be distorted, — in short, the " any thing 
to win " spirit — are also serious objections to the game 
as an honorable sport for boys. Preaching honor, 
courtesy, and gentleness to a school five days in the 
week is of little effect if the whole school pours out to 
applaud successful violence and trickery on the sixth day. 

This brings me to the second part of your question, 
the effect of the game on school discipline. As far as 
the boys' physical condition is concerned, football is 
a distinct help to the school-master. A boy who has 
plenty of active exercise in the open air is an easier 
boy to teach, a more reasonable boy to govern, and a 
pleasanter boy to live with than one of the other kind. 
And football, as I've said above, occupies a place and 
fills a gap in the year's round of sports which nothing 
else can well fill. The ill effects of the game on school 
discipline come not from football as such, but from the 



LETTERS PROM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 69 

undue prominence that public interest has given it. 
Boys get to feel, their school-mates feel, and the fi-iends 
of the school — if not their own parents — feel that, if 
they play their positions on the eleven successfully, they 
are doing enough for their own glory and the glory of 
the school. 

The pressure on school authorities to keep an unde- 
sirable pnpil, or, what is as bad, to admit one because 
" he can play football," is constant and at times severe. 
The result inevitably is that the leading football players 
of a school claim an immunity from the ordinary stand- 
ards of scholarship and discipline which adds seriously 
to the difficulties of school government. It would be 
unfair to blame the game of football, however, for this 
evil — the game of chess might easily cause it — except 
for the fact that football is so much the most spectacular 
of sports that it attracts the public more than any other. 

I am tempted to add a "word on the wider, though not 
more important, question of football as a game for men 
in colleges. Fond as I am of the game, and much as 
I enjoy watching a well-contested intercollegiate match, 
I'm being forced to the conclusion that football is not 
a fit game for grown men to play. However modified, 
it in its essence involves violent physical contacv of 
heavy masses of human flesh and bones. The injuries 
and risks of injuries which must result from such col- 
lisions are too high a price to pay for the physical or 
moral training which may possibly be obtained from the 
game. The notoriety which attends the successful col- 
lege football player, the columns of imbecile or im- 
pudent personal gossip about him which fill the news- 
papers during the football season, the terrible physical 
and nervous strain under which he trains for the big 
matches, are all unmitigated evils which seem to me 
avoidable only by abolishing intercollegiate football 
altogether. 



70 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

If, however, football is still to be played by the col- 
leges, there is one radical reform which, to ray mind at 
any rate, is adequate to remove a large part of the 
ph3^sical objections to the game. And this is to return 
to the original rules as to off-side play, and to enforce 
them to their whole intent. I mean by this much more 
than the abolishment of the so-called " interference." 
One must go farther back than that, to the original root 
of all the trouble — to the " snap-back." The moment 
the " snap-back " was invented, the systematic violation 
of the off-side rules began, and the whole progeny of 
evasions and distortions of the rules followed inevitably. 
As played now, the game is utterly illogical. If the 
rules mean anything, every man " lined up " after a 
" down " is off-side the moment the ball touches the 
quarter-back's hands, and all those attempts to define 
"holding in the line" are simply meaningless babble. 
Let the rule be made again what it was once — that 
every man off-side is out of the game and cannot touch 
the ball, or interfere with or obstruct another player ii^ 
any way — and half the difficulties of umpiring, and 
most of the objections to the game on account of the 
" mass " plays and " slugging " will at once disappear. 

I've written at this great length because of my deep 
interest in the subject and my anxiety to aid you in 
every way in your efforts to promote it. 

I've often talked football over with your friend and 
my former pupil, Walter Irving Badger, and he will be 
able to tell you something of my interest in it. 
Yours very truly, 

William R. Tyler. 

Adelphi Academy. 
It proved to be a rather difficult job to get statements 
of injuries from the boys on our football team. I have 
collected the enclosed. There ought to be as many 



LETTERS FROM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 71 

more, but two of the members of last fall's team are no 
longer in the Academy and three are at home sick with 
vaccination. Two others have failed to hand in the 
blanks to-day as they said they would, I suppose through 
forgetful ness, 

I judge, however, that from the answers which I 
enclose you can make a fair inference concerning the 
amount and quality of injuries that our players have 
received. The fact is that I have very little personal 
knowledge of the matter, for I have been here only since 
last fall. I am informed, however, that it is almost 
unknown that an Adelphi football player should receive 
any very serious or permanent injury. 

I believe that I may say that they have been so well 
trained that they have escaped from games with very 
much less personal damage than they have usually 
inflicted upon their opponents. Perhaps their compara- 
tive immunity is somewhat due to the fact that tliey 
are usually a light team and very nimble. The teams 
against which they play are usually superior in weight, 
and the last season, at any rate, showed a good many 
defeats for the Adelphi eleven, but if victory were deter- 
mined by the number of players who were injured in 
the games, the Adelphi team would have a rather brill- 
iant record. 

It is right in this connection that I should put on 
record my opinion that our boj^s, being somewhat lighter 
than their customary rivals, have played a pretty hard 
game in order to make points, and I fear that the result 
upon their own mental state has not been entirely 
beneficial. 

I have no doubt but they are deriving a great deal of 
physical advantage from their participation in the game, 
especially from their training, and I believe that they 
acquire habits of order and obedience which become 
valuable in school discipline. At the same time I do 



72 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

see a strong tendency to excuse any course which, will 
result in winning a game or making pointSj and that 
tendency, as you will easily observe, might lead to an 
objectionable mental development. 

I am heartily in sympathy with the effort to develop 
our scholastic games wisely, and I hope to give our boys 
better advantages next year than they have ever had be- 
fore, both in the shape of trainers and general facilities. 

At the same time I am more and more convinced that 
only by close vigilance and care shall we be able to 
prevent the development of the unscrupulous spirit 
among our athletes, or be able to preserve them from 
the objectionable sporting influences that grow up about 
our games. 

I believe that we ought to cultivate a public opinion 
among them which would visit quick condemnation 
upon any tiickery or brutality in play. 

If the newspapers have correctly reported the modifi- 
cations in the football rules that you and your associates 
have recommended, it seems to me that you are moving 
in exactly the right direction and have agreed upon very 
judicious amendments. 

Perhaps I should say a word upon one word in your 
note that I have so far rather overlooked. 

The effect of football and games of the same sort upon 
the scholarship of the young men who engage in them 
seems to me to be somewhat as follows : 

In the body of students at large I believe that the 
effect is good. The boy is made more wide awake and 
his better physical condition leads him to do better 
mental work. Most of the players upon our teams do 
very creditable work in scholarship. Concerning some 
individual pupils, however, a very different report would 
have to be made. There is the same evil here which we 
find in college : namely, the presence of a few young 
men who are interested in nothing but games, who study 



LETTERS FROM MEMBERS OP THE FACULTY 73 

just enough to stay in schools and enable them to partici- 
pate in games, and whose influence upon the other boys 
is very much of the earth earthy. 

My own impression is that the best physical training, 
viewed with reference to its influence on scholarship, 
discipline, and physical development, is the regular 
training in gymnastic work and in track athletics. 
That work can be kept closely under direction, can be 
made very regular and systematic, and can be largely 
shielded, here, from the demoralizing influences that 
attend games. Yours veiy truly, 

Charles H. Levermore. 

The Albany Academy. 

This is a local academy — hence the conditions are much 
like those of the Berkeley School in New York City. 

We have a capital play ground a mile and a half 
from the school — the result is but one season of prac- 
tice daily and this too long. The boys fit themselves 
for bad rather than good work at their books. All 
poor students suffer greatly ; good students plan their 
work so that the loss is minimized. 

Local academies suffer more than boarding schools, 
because too much football has to be taken at one 
time daily on account of difficulty of getting the teams 
together and distance from the play ground. 

The effect of football on health and capital : 

It is the manliest sport for boys ever devised. Were 
I at the head of a boarding school I would not receive 
or keep a boy who would not play football when he was 
told (unless he had some local weakness), for I should 
know that he had some punky spots in him. 

My Latin master was a member of the Rutgers College 
team and will add a few words. 

Yours cordially, 

P. P. Warren. 



74 football facts and figures 

Albany High School. 

The accompanying statements do not in my opinion 
afford very valuable data for reaching a conclusion. 
First, as to injuries : The boys who have received seri- 
ous injuries are no longer on the "team" and so their 
testimony is excluded. I can say, however, that serious 
or permanent injuries have been very few. 

Second as to scholarship, discipline, etc. Seven out of 
the twelve boys whose names are on these slips are 
among the very poorest students we have in school, but 
I do not think their scholarship is either better or worse 
for their being on the football team. We have had 
teams made up almost wholly of our best scholars, and 
never before one in which the scholarly element was so 
poorly represented. The five whose scholarship is credit- 
able among this twelve, have, I think, been benefited, 
rather than injured, mentally, morally, and physically 
by their participation in athletics. 

I am not a great admirer of the game of football, 
but candor compels me to state that the effect of the 
game in our school has been productive of more good 
than evil. 

Very truly yours, 

OscAK D. Robinson, Principal. 

Phillips Academy. 
Football was introduced into the Phillips Andover 
Academy in the fall of 18V5, and has been practised 
with a good deal of interest ever since. Out of several 
hundred boys it is generally easy to secure a good team, 
one with which the college teams are willing to play. 
In reply to your enquiry as to the results to the players 
and to the school, I can speak with considerable confi- 
dence after observing nineteen vigorous campaigns. 
There have been a good many instances of physical 
accidents, interrupting for a longer or shorter time 



LETTERS FROM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 75 

school attendence, but no serious disability has followed 
in any cases as I now remember. " Training " has 
generally been a physical benefit, and it has set a stand- 
ard of wholesome living as regards sleep, diet, and physi- 
cal exercise, which has helped the entire student bod3^ 
This advantage has been impaired sometimes by the 
reaction of going " out of training." 

The intellectual work of the players has suffered by 
the hard demands of the games and the practice, by the 
intense interest in the success of the team and in the 
scores made by other teams, by endless discussion of 
prospects and possibilities ; on the other hand it has 
been helped by the moral earnestness of the men, a sense 
of responsibility and school loyalty, and by the physical 
regimen. The intellectual woi'k of the school at large 
is improved by a wholesome interest in a sport which 
rebukes softness, self-indulgence, and individualism, and 
emphasizes the bolder virtues. Football interest replaces 
a vast amount of inferior interest and talk. 

It is vastly easier to teach and govern a school in 
which men, who are to be eminent college captains and 
players, are working for immediate and for coming 
successes, and who win their full share of victories here, 
and go up to college with a very considerable reputation 
as promising candidates for class and college teams. 

It is easy to fix upon individual accidents, frequent in- 
terruption of studies, not infrequent poor preparation of 
lessons, incidental disorders and slips after victories, 
inordinate absorption in the critical contests, the large 
aggregate expense, and to overlook the healthy recrea- 
tion, the unifying influence, the moral restraint and 
incentives, the generous rivalries, and the revised and 
corrected estimates of values which a team made up of 
good boys, under good discipline and handling, will 
secure to the whole school. School morals and school 
morale are the better for this difl^lcult and somewhat 



76 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

dangerous sport. The dangers ought to be made less, 
and the advantages made more obvious and universal. 

Cecil F. P. Bancroft. 

Berkeley School. 

My teachers agree with me and I am really surprised 
at the unanimity of feeling among our masters in regard 
to the game. Possibly my own enthusiasm has toppled 
them all over, but I hardly think so. Their opinions * 
are certainly honestly given, and I have not appended 
comments until after consultation with those who, I had 
reason to believe, would be very conservative. 

Wishing you all success in such a revision of the 
rules as will make this finest of all games a permanency 
among our sports for American boys, and with the 
expression of ray highest esteem for the splendid stand 
you have always taken in athletics, I am 

Yours sincerely, 

John S. White. 

Bridgeport High School. 

I am fully satisfied that football has been helpful 
to my boys, and of decided advantage to my school. 
Improvement along lines of school discipline was more 
manifest last fall than ever before. With some of our 
team scholarship has never amounted to much, and we 
did not realize any decided change. I think, however, 
that our boys feel more than ever that men of good 
mental ability must represent the school in this sport, in 
fact, that mind wins through muscle rather than muscle 
without mind, 

I expect to see the day when our school will ijot 
accept athletic work from members of low standing in 
regular school work. 

* Comments as to the effect of the game upon each boy. 



LETTERS FROM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 77 

Trusting that you will succeed in helping to remove 
some features of roughness in the game, so that our 
fathers may not be afraid to have all the boys play, 
I remain, in the interest of all manly sports. 
Most truly yours, 

H. D. SiMONDS, Principal. 

Mechanic Arts High School, Boston. 

I have referred your letter, and blanks numbered 
from 73 to 84 inclusive, to Ray Greene Huling, head- 
master of the Cambridge English High School, and my 
successor. I am at present in charge of the Boston 
Mechanic Arts High School, a new institution, without 
any athletic experience. 

Personally, I am fond of athletic sports, believe in the 
competitive spirit, have faith in the general good that 
comes from them, find in them a safe exit for much 
superfluous energy that might otherwise be worse 
directed. That is, athletics have a negative moral 
value in the way suggested, to say nothing of their 
positive moral value in keeping high ideals of temper- 
ance, moderation, and such things before the boys. 

I think the present feeling that football is too savage 
a game, in some of its aspects, is well-grounded, and 
hope a way may be found to save the game from its 
harsher features. But these are truisms. 

Yours truly, 

Frank A. Hill. 



English High School. 

My own views about the effect of football upon the 
boys and upon their school work are these : 

Boys ought to have not only gymnastics but athletics, 
that they may get strength of body, quickness and pre- 
cision of movement, and certain moral traits essential 



78 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

to the highest manhood, as pluck, alertness, and disposi- 
tion to co-operate with others for useful ends. 

Being boys, they will carry their athletics to extremes, 
and will admit unwise accompaniments ; they will also 
for the sake of athletics permit neglect of home and 
school duties. 

Therefore I favor the giving to all boys of opportu- 
nities for athletics in the proper season, and of gym- 
nastics during winter and inclement weather. But I 
would also favor the supervision of such sports and 
gymnasial practice by competent adults, when this is 
permissible by considerations of expense and residence. 
In any case I would have the athletics done under such 
regulations as older minds devise, to secure reasonable 
safety and gentlemanly conduct, and I would have some 
authority vested with power to enforce expulsion be- 
cause of repeated violations of the regulations, and 
temporary suspension because of strain or other injury 
to health, and because of neglect of school duties. 

I may add that I observe some positive evidence of 
loss in scholarship because of interest in athletics among 
the boys in school. This has been true in every school 
in which I have taught — in Fall River (1869-75), in 
Fitchburg (1875-86), in New Bedford (1886-93), and in 
Cambridge (1893-94); but I appreciate the fact that 
school is not the only preparation for life. I value the 
qualities of manliness that come from association of 
boys in innocent athletics so highly that I am willing to 
take less in book-knowledge, if I cannot get the manly 
qualities without some loss of this kind. But I as firmly 
believe that with due regulation and competent super- 
vision a proper balance of study and physical exercise 
can be maintained, resulting in steady growth of mind 
and body alike. 

There is one more consideration worth mentioning. 
Our boys by their athletics are sometimes led to asso- 



LETTERS FROM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 79 

ciate with men of a "sporting" type, to the injury of 
their morals. Bad habits of language, smoking, and 
drinking have been acquired thus within my personal 
observation ; and betting has been alleged. This is 
hard to reach, even with supervision of athletics, but 
restraints can be imposed to keep the tendency in check ; 
and the general tone of the school will have some re- 
straining effect. 

On the whole, you observe, I favor regulated and 
supervised athletics, though I recognize their positive 
annoyances and dangers. 

Cordially, 
Ray Greene Huling, Head-master. 

English High School. 

It is difficult to answer your enquiries by circular 
about football by " good " or " bad " without qualifica- 
tion. As the game is now conducted, I am of the 
opinion that the result on the whole is unmistakably 
bad. 

Our team was carefully trained this fall and I think 
the boys of the team were unquestionably benefited 
physically. But the rest of the school received no good 
in this way. It is systematic gymnastics or drill, not 
athletics in any form, that can help the entire school. 

The game makes very little difference in point of 
general school discipline. It takes a little restlessness 
out of a few boys who engage in it and gives them 
a little practice in self-control on the field, which is all 
the advantages I am able to see. 

The bad effect upon scholarship has always been 
noted. Our rank lists show it unmistakably. 

The rivalry between schools is a bad element. It 
may do for college men to cultivate the college spirit, 
but it is a bad thing in elementary schools. 

I am sorry that I have to make so unfavorable 



80 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

a report, for I enjoyed base-ball as a college boy, and 
like to witness any game, now. 

Yours sincerely, 

C. F. Waenee. 

Cambeidge Latin School. 

As to the effect of sports, etc., on the discipline of 
this school, except in a few cases, I think these have 
had very little effect. Now and then a boy stays from 
school, plays truant, because he loses interest in school 
on account of his greater interests outside. 

Physically, more are injured than helped. I have 
many who have suffered for years from injury to their 
knees. Many boys simply ruin their course (intellec- 
tually) by giving their time to athletics. 

I have seen nothing more to the point than the remarks 
of President Eliot on athletics in his last annual report. 
What he says applies to the high schools. 
Truly yours, 

W. F. Beadbuet, Head-master. 

Chauncy Hall School. 

At present our boys have no organized eleven for 
football, and consequently there are no boys whose 
answers to your questions would be valuable. 

So far as football has been played here, I should not 
have considered its effects as differing in any respect 
from the effects of other sports — base-ball, track ath- 
letics, tennis, etc. The tendency of match games of 
whatever kind is to lead the participants to overdo the 
business — to neglect their legitimate work for what 
should be only a recreation. But, after all, I think 
with us school work suffers more from party-going and 
theatre-going, late hours, and consequently insufficient 
sleep, than from all the out-door sports put together. 



LETTERS FROM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 81 

I am sorry that I cannot give the detailed answers to 
your questions that you would like. 

Yours very truly, 

M. Grant Daniell. 

Colgate Academy. 
Replying to your letter of the 1st of March, I take 
pleasure in stating briefly my own opinion about foot- 
ball. We have been very fortunate this year in our foot- 
ball, inasmuch as no accident has occurred. I believe 
that last year, before I came, one or two quite serious 
injuries were reported. I played football myself, and 
in part in intercollegiate contests, and in ray personal 
experience as a player never saw any one seriously hurt 
on the field. I myself was never hurt at all except, of 
course, the bruises and occasionally a black eye that 
seem to be inseparable from the game. I am confident 
that in a game rightly controlled it can be made to be 
of great physical advantage, contributing to the good 
discipline of the school. There is something in the 
nature of boys that makes them particularly love a game 
that is hard, into which the element of endurance and, 
to a certain extent, suffering enters. Moreover, the 
game has been in many instances helpful in training 
men in self-control and subjugation of temper as no 
other means could do, I have, however, been impressed 
the last year or so with Avhat seemed to be an increasing 
roughness of the game, and I have noted a strong 
popular disapproval of many of its features. It has 
seemed to me, therefore, that unless the rules of the 
game could be so remedied as to remove all opportunity 
for unnecessary brutality, that it could not continue to 
hold its place in the favor of schools and colleges. In 
one game that our boys played last year such a ferocious 
spirit was exhibited by their opponents that I could 
not consent under anv circumstances to allow them to 



82 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

play there again. Football can never be made a game 
for invalids, but I am §ure that something can be done 
to check the tendency to ferocity and brutality. Unless 
something is done in this direction, I shall not feel that 
I can conscientiously give it any longer the hearty sup- 
port that I hitherto have given it. I take pleasure in 
enclosing herewith statements from members of our 
team. Yours truly, 

C. H. Thurber, Principal. 

Connecticut Literary Institution. 
I am much interested in the matter of your letter, 
but it will take a few days to communicate with our 
football men, some of whom are on vacation. 

I wish also to write out my own views and secure those 
members of the faculty most in touch with athletics. 
This effort I most cheerfully undertake because I shall 
be glad to see sports protected from unreasonable advo- 
cates and opponents, and their rightful place generally 
conceded. With best wislies. 

Yours sincerely, 

Walter Scott. 

The Cutler School. 
The popularity of the game here is shown by the fact 
that in a school of 180 boys we had five football' teams 
last autumn. 

Yours truly, 

Arthur H. Cutler. 

English and Classical School. 

My boys are away now on their vacation and perhaps 
any reply may be too late. 

I can say for them that they have received many 
bruises, sprains, and abrasions of the skin. One boy 
had a cut over the eye which required a few stitches, 



LETTERS FROM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 83 

and one was thrown hard to the ground and was dazed 
for a while, but each attended to his school duties the 
next day. No one has received any severe or permanent 
injury. 

I am not aware that the sport has had any injurious 
effect on the scholarship or discipline of the school, and 
it certainly has improved the health and physical 
development of the players and awakened new interest 
in athletics among all the boj'^s of the school. 

The contests between school elevens seem to increase 
the loyal sentiment and thus react favorably in many 
ways upon the scholarship and discipline of the 
school. 

Still I hope the dangers will be eliminated and brute 
force will give place to strategy and skill. 
Yours truly, 

Chas. B. GoFF, Principal. 

The Phillips Exeter Academy. 
Your letter has been carefully considered b}'- our 
faculty. I enclose the blanks. 

I may add that we believe in athletics when properly 
managed, and should not like to abolish sports; but we 
disapprove the sharp practices that sometimes grow out 
of inter-scholastic contests. 

We shall be glad to know the general result of your 
enquiries. 

Very truly yours, 
J. A. Tufts, Secretary of Faculty. 

Germantovtn Academy. 

The Easter holidays have prevented me from reply- 
ing to your favor of March 20. 

Germantown Academy has had a football team for 
seventeen years and has generally been very active in 



84 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

all school sports. We hold the championship in the 
Inter- Academic League of Philadelphia and vicinity, and 
I think there has scarcely been a season that we have 
not defeated the Freshmen teams of the university. I 
mention this to show you that we have had a very large 
experience in football, and during all that time have not 
had a single accident that has resulted in serious or 
permanent injury. 

The best student makes the best football playei-, and I 
consider the general effect of the sport upon the boys 
good, both physically and mentally. 

I return you nine of the blanks signed by members of 
my present team, two are still absent. 

My general answer above covers questions 5 and 6 
of every blank. 

Truly yours, 

William Kershaw. 



Girls' High and Latin Schools. 
You will probably smile when I tell you that the two 
schools of which I have charge contain together about 
one thousand girls. I have read your questions with 
considerable amusement, and can only regret that my 
experience does not qualify me to assist you in your 
efforts to ascertain how football affects the secondary 
schools. In fact, I haven't a boy even in my family, all 
my children being girls. You could hardly have found 
in the United States a school-master more incompetent to 
enlighten you. 

Yours, 

John Tetlow, Head-master. 

Groton School. 
I will not write to you at length my views upon foot- 
ball in its relation to school life, because I have already 



LETTERS FROM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 85 

told you my ideas in part, and I shall have an oppor- 
tunity to express them more fully in person. It is ray 
opinion that while football is not free from objectiona- 
ble features even in schools where interest is taken in 
it by the masters, it has advantages which far outweigh 
these defects. 

There is, no doubt, a tendency on the part of boys to 
lay too much stress upon the importance of the chief 
matches, to dream of them as they draw near, instead of 
devoting themselves to their books, and to unduly ex- 
aggerate the importance of victory. In some schools, as 
in some of the colleges, it seems to be thought necessary 
to make allowance for shortcomings of the members of 
the football team in the height of the season. But this 
is by no means the fault of the game. 

When the game is fairly played (and without an 
honorable spirit all games are harmful) it cultivates 
some of the most important qualities for our times. It 
develops in players a spirit of courage, and a willingness 
to endure fatigue and pain, which are qualities most 
needed in these days of luxury and extravagance. It 
supplies boys with a healthy subject for conversation. 
People may think that it prevents the discussions of 
intellectual topics, but these are not likely to occupy the 
spare time of the average school-boy. Under favorable 
circumstances football, and athletics generally, run out 
a lot of poor stuff which enters into the thoughts and 
lives of young men who are more fond of society and 
the gentle games than of these more stirring sports. 
There are many other qualities which are brought out 
by football, but these three — endurance for the sake of 
the institution which one is representing, simplicity of 
life, and healthy conversation — are things which are not, 
as it seems to me, generally recognized by the world at 
large. To my mind, luxurj'-, extravagance, and immo- 
rality are the greatest foes to the young men of this, or 



86 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

of any other country, and I gladly hail a game like foot- 
ball which tends to drive these evils out. 
I am, 

Very truly yours, 

Endicott Peabodt. 

Hakey Hillman Academy. 

I have the pleasure to forward the blanks sent me 
with answers where it was possible to obtain them. 
You will notice a note of my own at the bottom of one 
of the blanks. 

We have no training table at this school, nor do we 
carry the playing of the gaine to excess. 

I do not approve of school teams travelling about the 
country, but in our case it has been necessary to go 
away sometimes in order to secure worthy opponents. 
We have generally had a teacher play upon the team 
whose knowledge of the game was of advantage to the 
team and whose presence at games prevented any thing 
unbecoming from taking place. 

I see quite clearly that games in secondary schools 
should receive careful supervision. A number of other 
matters concerning this manly game receive our atten- 
tion, but I presume would be of no special service to 
you in this connection. 

Very truly yours, 

H. C. Davis. 

Haktford Public High School. 
I enclose replies from our football eleven, and am 
sorry that the delay has occurred. 

There can be no question as to the general good 
effect of the game upon our boys and upon the school. 
Yours truly, 

Charles Henry Douglas. 



letters from members of the faculty 87 

The Highland Military Academy. 
Youi' kind enquiry is by no means an intrusion, 
but very welcome. While athletics have not flour- 
ished with us as in some civil schools, because of the 
prominence of the military element in our curriculum, 
we have found athletic sports among our cadets to 
be every way helpful and inspiring. Under a system 
less strict than ours I can understand how athleticism 
might be carried so far as to interfere with good scholar- 
ship, but such a state of things does not exist here. 
I will gladly hand your blanks to the captain of our 
football eleven. 

Yours very sincerely, 

Joseph Alden Shaw. 



The Hotchkiss School. 

I enclose to-day the forms sent me to be filled out. 
Your question as to the effect of football on the indi- 
vidual is very difficult to answer, especially as we have 
no school teams and no outside competitions. For the 
outside competitions are, I think, usually the source of 
most of the unfortunate excesses in school athletics. 

As to the connection of athletics, i. e., competitive 
contests, with physical development, I consider them 
occasions for exhibiting the valuable results of physical 
health and culture, by the tests which they afford. 
But I do not consider them as having any direct connec- 
tion with physical culture itself. 

Very truly yours, 

Edward G. Coy. 

Dr. Holbrook's Military School. 
Our experience with football and, indeed, all athletics, 
has been that, under restrictions, they have been of 
great benefit to our boys physically ; and we have 



88 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

found that what benefits them physically renders them 
capable of more and better mental work. 

The casualties among our pupils have been much less 
since they played football systematically, i. e., with 
proper clothing and training, than when we made no 
such restrictions. 

Of course we cannot speak for college students, but it 
seems to us that the game, for school-boys, would be 
much improved if the danger from what I understand 
to be " mass" plays could be lessened in some way. 

Aside from that we feel that it is a benefit in every 
way to our boys. 

Sincerely yours, 

Henbt C. Holbeook. 

Hopkins Grammar School. 

My general opinion of the effect upon the school is 
favorable, though last year we had three serious acci- 
dents in one game. I wish that the danger of physical 
injury could be lessened either by more open play or in 
some other fashion. 

Of the beneficial moral effect I have had two striking 
illustrations in the school. There were two boys who 
on entering the school seemed likely to turn out milk- 
sops. They were timid, shy, and difiident to the last 
degree. They both began to play football and con- 
tinued to do so as long as they were in the school. 

The grandmother of one of them, who was his guardian, 
was very solicitous about the game and its roughness, but 
she had to acknowledge to me that her grandson was 
growing more manly and courageous under it. 

Those boys became in time thoroughly self-reliant 
and plucky, and I am disposed to ascribe the change in 
large measure to the discipline of football. 
Yours in haste, 

George L. Fox. 



letters pbom members op the faculty 89 

King's School, 
I have never known a boy to study less faithfully 
because of football, and I have sometimes known boys 
to study much better because of it ; finding they could 
succeed in football has seemed to start a desire to suc- 
ceed in other kinds of work, for football, properly man- 
aged in school, has a decided element of work in it. 

I want to say in this connection that I consider the 
recently introduced massed plays not only a great dis- 
advantage but a positive danger to school-boy teams. 
Teams from different schools are much more apt to 
differ in weight than college teams, and in those massed 
plays a twenty-five pounds difference in average weight 
is damaging and may be disastrous. These plays have 
certainly introduced an additional element of danger, 
and parents know it W'ell enough to show an increased 
unwillingness to allow their boys to play. Last season 
I was unwilling for the first time to try to overcome 
parents' unwillingness by reasoning with them. In this 
indirect way it seems to me that those plays will soon 
affect unfavorably the college teams. 

Youi's very truly, 

Hiram N. King. 

Jaevis Hall Military Academy. 
I know that the game did more for me mentally, mor- 
ally, and physically, than anything else in my college life. 
I went to college timid and weak, and I graduated with 
a confidence in my own poAvers and physical strength 
which have been worth every thing to me. Physi- 
cally one might have said that I would have been killed 
by the game, for I was 6 ft. 1 in. tall, and only weighed 
137 pounds. The position I played every day for nearly 
two seasons, of full-back on the scrub team, required me 
to kick against the 'varsity with such a weak line in front 
of me that I usually was thrown as soon as I had kicked. 



90 FOOTBALL FACTS AND PIGtTRES 

The only injury I received was in playing against the 
University of Pennsylvania. I was thrown out of 
bounds and struck on my shoulder on a ridge of earth 
which should not have been there. 

The argument for roughness is an argument for 
ignorance. The real argument against football as played 
in our colleges I believe to be that the selection of a 
team and their careful training gives too few men a 
chance to play. A broken bone is a small thing com- 
pared with the coolness, the self-control, and the manly 
spirit which football more than any other sport gives to 
the player. If colleges exist only to teach Latin and 
Greek they might as well close, for nine-tenths of the 
graduates knew more of the dead languages when they 
entered than when they graduated ; but if the colleges 
exist to make men, football is the most important part 
of the course. The only trouble is that under our pres- 
ent system so few can " elect " it. 

Thanking you for giving me the privilege of writing 
upon the subject, I am. 

Very truly yours, 

F. T. Spalding. 

Laweencevillb School. 

Notwithstanding the somewhat favorable report given 
by our school physician, whose letter I enclose, and 
notwithstanding my own endorsement of the game of 
football, I am constrained to say that it works dis- 
astrously in a fitting-school of high grade. This year 
only one member of our team is to be graduated. Every 
other member of the team has either been dropped from 
his class, dropped from the school, or as is the case with 
the captain, seriously injured and compelled to leave the 
institution. 

You know our Mr, George, Pi'inceton's famous centre 
rush. He and I frequently talk over the game of foot- 



LETTERS FROM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 91 

ball played by boys in a fitting-school. Our conclusion 
is that if these boys play occasionally with college teams, 
as do Andover, Exeter, and Lawrenceville, they are un- 
equal to the strain of the necessary training. Some- 
thing should be done to diminish the demand upon grow- 
ing boys. We have played football here for ten years, 
and play it well enough to score against the 'varsity 
team at Princeton. Tlie physical injuries are a bagatelle, 
and I make no account of them, but the positive and 
indisputable injury to scholarship creates grave question- 
ing in my mind. Very truly yours, 

James C. Mackinzie. 

Lawrenceville. 

I gladly make a report upon the football team of our 
school. Whether this sport per se has a bad effect 
upon scholarship I cannot say. Unfortunately the foot- 
ball players (team men) are rather poor scholars. 

We have had 175 boys from twelve years old to nine- 
teen who played more or less all the fall. Only eighteen 
of this number lost any time from their work by injuries 
received. 

The injuries were as follows : 

Fracture tibia and fibula, 1 

Sprains, 8 

Synovitis (knee) 3 

Fractured nose, 1 

Contusions, 5 

In all these accidents there was a perfect recovery. 

One case not mentioned on the blanks was an injury 
to the head, and causing a severe contusion from which 
the boy has not fully recovered, and is out of school. 

The injury was not very troublesome at the time but 
caused disturbance after his return to his home. 

In general I believe in the game, and it is a good form 
of exercise. Yours truly, 

Hubert S. Johnson. 



92 football facts and figures 

Milton Academy. 

I find it hard to answer the questions regarding the 
effect of the game on boys so specifically as you wish, 
and must beg you to allow me to answer them generally 
on this sheet. 

The injuries received here have been few and not 
serious, although this is a young school, and practice until 
this year has not been very vigorous (owing to the fact 
that we have not had enough good material to enable us 
to play other private schools with much chance of beat- 
ing, and games have been rather few. 

I am an ardent supporter of the game as played in 
such schools as this, where the games and practice are 
overseen by teachers and where often teachers play and 
act as referee or umpire. I am equally opposed to the 
game as played by many college teams, and object to the 
code of morality which prevails at present among the 
college players. 

I do not believe this necessary, because when I insist 
upon visiting teams conforming to our code they have 
almost always been glad to do so, and some players have 
said to me afterward that they approved gentlemanly 
mode of play and were glad I insisted on it. 

This moral side of the question I consider the most 
important with regard to the existence of the game. As 
to the physical effect I think it thoroughly good, and 
should look forward with dread to an autumn without 
our football practice and games. 

The risk of injury, it seems to me, amounts to noth- 
ing, and it is a game that brings out the qualities of grit 
and endurance. 

There have been at times four elevens practising at 
once on our grounds with a total number in the school of 
about sixty boys, between twelve and eighteen years. 
What would these forty-four boys be doing, if they were 
not at football ? 



LETTERS FROM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 93 

I used to say that the autumn term was the football 
terra and the spring term the base-ball term, and that 
the winter term was the time to study. I find, however, 
that quite as good work is done during the football 
season, and that the members of the eleven do as well 
then as at any time. 

From the i^w standpoint of physical development I 
can hardly approve of the game. 

For a person aiming at that I should think chest 
weights, boxing, fencing, running, horseback, etc., would 
be better than one violent game like this. 

I think the game has rather a good effect on disci- 
pline, but we have very little discipline here, not having 
or keeping any boys not fairly willing to conform to 
rules. 

I hope you will pardon the form of my reply. The sub- 
ject is one that interests me as a teacher of boys, though 
I am not a football player, and have merely played with 
the boys partly to help out and partly to learn the game 
and not be a mere theorist. 

If I can answer any further questions I shall be 
glad to. 

Very truly yours, 

Harbison O. Apthorp. 

• New Britain High School. 

I do not know, indeed, I do not think, that their 
interest in football has affected the course of the players 
materially. Some have been good scholars, others poor 
ones, and I presume would have been much the same 
anyhow. 

I think the discipline of the game on the whole con- 
duces to general self-control, and so the effect upon the 
school is good. 

"While the game contributes unquestionably to good 
physical development, I cannot but deprecate the 



94 rOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

dangers that have, it seems to me, grown into it year 
by year. There ought to be more decided restrictions 
in regard to methods of playing, and they should be 
enforced. Some would then play who will not, or are 
not permitted to, play now. 

Yours very truly, 

John H. Peck. 

The Princeton Preparatory School. 
I thoroughly believe that most of the objections made 
by the public to our noble sport are wrongly founded 
and conceived. My own experience tells me that foot- 
ball has been invaluable for its physical development and 
its teaching of restraint of temper, and of self-posses- 
sion. The injury which I mention* was received while 
playing with our school team last year and was the 
result of a kick in the mouth in a tackle. At the time 
I was laughing because one of the boys had succeeded in 
passing me and I made a dive for him. While in col- 
lege I never had any trouble except with black ej'^es, 
sprained ankles, which inevitable things were very rare 
with me. The only two cases of sprained ankle befell 
me when not properly protected by ankle-braces. It is 
a noble game for strong, well-built men' It is of course 
too noble for physical weaklings. 

Very truly, 

C. T. Wood. 

Public Latin School. 

I am an earnest advocate of school athletics, but 
I would make the practice of them a part of the school 
curriculum wherever it is practicable. It would not be 
practical in this school. 

I do not see why this is not practicable in colleges, 

* Noted on one of the blanks as Mr. Wood played with the 
school team. 



LETTERS FROM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 95 

academies, and boarding schools ; I mean in institutions 
where pupils are in aggregations, under the control of 
the masters all the time. I do not think that out-door 
athletics have much effect on school discipline any way. 
I think military drill promotes and strengthens dis- 
cipline. There is no doubt in my mind about the effect 
of athletics upon scholarship, especially while pupils are 
actually engaged in them. They distract the attention, 
lessen the time for study, and absorb to a large degree 
the thoughts and conversation of pupils. The winter 
season saves the utter prostration of scholarship in many 
instances. There can be no question, as it seems to me, 
that the effect is good in point of physical development 
when carried on under proper rules and limitations. 
There should be no uncontrolled freedom, or license, of 
athletics in any institution of learning, 

I agree generally with President Eliot in his views as 
stated in the last report of Harvard University. I think, 
so far as our pupils have been able to engage in athletics 
in our school, the effect has not been bad — perhaps on the 
whole good. Very respectfully yours, 

Moses Merrill, Head-master. 

Salem High School. 
I have never noticed any ill effects of any consequence 
resulting from properly controlled football in mj' school. 
It does not interfere with discipline; it need not inter- 
fere with study; and it adds to the spirit of the school. 
Very truly yours, 

A. L, Goodrich, Principal. 

St. Albans School. 
Replying to your favor of March 1 in regard to the 
effect that the game of football has had upon the boys 
of this school both physically and in the matter of school 
discipline, I beg to say : 



96 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

1st. I think that there are boys in the school who 
owe much to this game for the health, strength, and 
activity derived from it. When some of them get to 
be sixty and seventy years of age, they will be all the 
more hearty and vigorous old men for the football they 
have played in their youth. 

2d. During the past two years, although we have 
had many match games and constant practice, we have 
had no player injured so as to prevent his attending 
regularly his school duties. This has been largely due 
to the intelligent coaching the boys have received, hav- 
ing had either a Yale or a Princeton player in chai'ge of 
them both years. 

3d. In the matter of school discipline, I find that 
football has a great deal to do with checking and 
destroying the inclination of boys to dime novels, 
cigarettes, intoxicants and the like, which, disguise it as 
we may, are always lurking about the growing boy to 
sap his health and mental and moral tone. Stagnant 
pools breed things, and I take it that football and its 
kindred healthy sports, such as rowing, base-ball, tennis, 
and the like, are like a healthy, fresh current turned in 
upon the boy's life. It flushes the ducts and avenues 
of his being, prevents deceit, morbidness ; makes him 
manlier, freer, franker, and healthier. 

4th. I find that boys respect and obey authority all 
the better when they find it has intelligent sympathy with 
their out-door sports and games. 

5th. From my experience and observation I am in favor 
of football on general principles. The pinch-chested 
ecclesiastic of the Middle Ages has been our student- 
ideal long enough. It is about time we were returning 
to the symmetrical Greek who could write a choral ode 
one day and race in the Olympic games the next. 

With cordial regards, very truly yours, 

Geo. W. Miles, Jr., Head-master. 



letters from members of the faculty 97 

St. Albans School. 

It is with great pleasure I give my testimony to aid 
football. I am very fond of the game and think most 
people do not understand its principles, and are too apt 
to oppose it. 

I am heartily in accord with what you are trj'^ing to 
do and am willing to give a helping hand whenever I can. 

I have been liere at St. Albans this past year and 
trained the boys last fall. 

We are all very enthusiastic over the game and feel 
that nothing but good has resulted to us from our play- 
ing. None of the boys was hurt, although in every 
game we averaged about twenty pounds less than the 
opposing team and won every game. 

If I had my college course to go over again I would 
feel that I was hurting myself physically and not get- 
ting all the good I could if I did not play football. 
Yours truly, 

Joseph G. Symmes, Jr. 

St. Paul's School. 
I am very sorry to have missed you, as I hoped to get 
many points which would further our sport at school 
and perhaps give you a few suggestions as to the diffi- 
culties of the game from an educational standpoint. If 
the return to the rough and ready Rugby is impossible, 
perhaps the chief difficulties or objections to this game 
would be met by prohibiting all off-side play, and fur- 
thering kicking and running at tlie same time by some 
such arrangement as this, which would also give the 
umpire a chance to see any intentional roughness : 
Allow only four men of each side on the line at a down, 
including the quarter-back, any of whom may run with 
the ball if he receives it from tlie quarter-back while 
on side, all others to be behind the nearest ten-yard line 
till the ball is in play. The point seems to me to be 
7 



98 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

to make a game where a good man, light or heavy, 
will succeed, and where the chances for intentional 
roughness and rule-breaking would be minimized, and 
the game equalized between those who have and those 
who have not the ball. Yours, 

j. p. conovek. 

St. Paul's School. 
I consider the sport valuable in every way for my 
school. Please do away with the " mass play," and 
there will be no difficulty. 

Fredk. L, Gam age. 

St. Mark's School, 

In reply to your enquiry in regard to the effect of the 
game of football upon the boys of St. Mark's school, I 
beg to say that I consider that in point of discipline and 
physical development it has been of great advantage to 
my boys, 

I am not, however, satisfied with the lines along 
which the game has been developed during the past 
two or three years, and I think its efficiency is likely to 
be seriously impaired unless some radical changes are 
made in the rules, and vigorous measures are taken to 
confine the game to its proper place, which is to furnish 
healthful exercise and out-of-door recreation. 

At present the game has attained a position of too 
great importance in school-boy life. 

With my wishes for your success in regulating football, 
I am. 

Very truly yours, 

Wm. E. Peck, Head-master. 

Thayer Academy. 
The Thayer Academy has no football team and there 
were but four of the boys who played on a team last 



LETTERS FROM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 99 

autumn. Of these four, the chief and most active has 
just been dismissed from school for inattention to study 
and misdemeanor after a protracted probation, while of 
the other three it is only to be said that they are fair 
scholars and have never been subject to criticism for 
conduct. No accident Las happened that I remember 
beyond the dislocation of a finger. 

Yours truly, 

J. B. Sewall. 

Westminster School. 
As to the effects of football upon my boys, I have 
only a favorable report to give. I regard the discipline 
of training and playing games, whether the boys win or 
lose, as an indispensable adjunct to the school curric- 
ulum. It is not necessary for me to repeat the cata- 
logue of advantages which make football in a school 
superior to all other games. I may add from my own 
experience that I have found it even helpful to scholar- 
ship. The majority of our honor boys from week to 
week has consisted of the best football players, and 
when the season ends a falling off in scholarship is 
noticeable. All our boys play except those who are 
forbidden by their doctors to do so. 

Sincerely yours, 

W. L. Gushing. 

William Penn Charter School. 
We have been playing football in this school from 
the season of 1887 to the present time. During this 
period we have held the championship about one-half 
the time. We have had no serious accident whatever, 
either in games or in practice. You will see by one of 
the enclosed papers that Marshall reports his collar- 
bone and one rib broken. .That, however, did not occur 
in either a school game or school practice. It was done 



100 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

by playing with older and untrained men. We attrib- 
ute our immunity from accident to the employment of 
the first teaching talent, in this department, procurable 
in the country. Kobert H. Corwin, George W. Wood- 
ruff, and Henry Lane Williams have been in charge of 
this sport. We regard the influence of football in our 
school as good, and only good. 

You will find after careful investigation that the evils 
all arise from belonging to leagues and associations, and 
holding the contest in grounds outside of the colleges 
and in big towns. In order to win in these affairs, 
which attract such a vast amount of attention, too 
great effort must be made and too great sacrifice. The 
moment you push a hoy or young man so far in this 
sport or any other that he becomes in any measure or in 
any sense a professional, you have gone too far ; and 
you must train your teams to this point if you win in 
national contests. 

I am, 

Yours faithfully, 
Richard M. Jones, M. A., Head-master. 

WiLLiSTON Seminary. 
Under such regulations as we are able to enforce 
in a preparatory school, we consider football conducive 
to a healthy, vigorous school-life. 

We are so well satisfied that its advantages decidedly 
outweigh its disadvantages that we do not hesitate to 
give it our hearty encouragement and support. 

The colleges must take the initiative in reducing the 
disadvantages to a minimum. In the nature of the case 
the secondary schools can merely imitate, and the ten- 
dency of the human nature we deal with is to exag- 
gerate the objectionable features. 
Yours very truly, 

William Gallagher, Principal. 



letters from members of the faculty 101 

Worcester Academy. 

I have personally with great enthusiasm encouraged 
and built up, in all proper ways, an interest in football 
during a twelve years' administration of this school. I 
firmly believe in tlie great virtues of the sport, and yet 
at the same time I welcome the prospect of a reform of 
the game and a pruning of the features which have 
grown into it, which to my thinking are foreign both to 
the spirit and to the right tactics of football. 

I wish to acknowledge my warm personal apprecia- 
tion, as principal of a lai'ge school of boys, of the 
influence which is proceeding from you to bring the 
game to a sane condition. As a graduate of Harvard I 
gladly bear testimony to the great obligation to you 
under which all lovers of this manly sport rest. I am 
in full sympathy with the general criticisms upon 
it in President Eliot's last report to the Overseers 
of Harvard University. I doubt much, however, the 
expediency and wisdom of some of his specific recom- 
mendations. I am very frequently in receipt of letters 
from the parents of my boys, who very severely criticise 
the game. Only this morning a father of two of my 
boys prophesied success to the school that first dared to 
withstand football. While I believe that this is a very 
extreme position, I still feel that there is mucli occasion 
for the disrepute in which it rests in the minds of many 
thoughtful men, and shall cordially co-operate, as far as 
lies in my power, with all steps toward a proper reform 
of the game. 

Regretting the delay in returning these blanks, I am, 
Very sincerel3^ yours, 

D. W. Abercrombie. 

Amherst College. 
While football has been played at Amherst for some 
time the game has commanded the general interest of 



102 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

the college only within the last three years. For this 
period the official records of the college show that nearly 
one-half of the men playing on the three elevens were 
in the first half of the class in scholarship. Nor would 
the instructors of the other half assign football, I think, 
as the principal or even as a noticeable cause of the 
lower rank of these students. 

No just inference, however, can be drawn in regard to 
the effect of football at Amherst without an undei-- 
standing of the attitude of the college toward athletics 
in general. Exercises in physical training are not only 
a part of the college curriculum, but are required of 
every student. By this requirement a certain capital in 
the way of physical training is provided, upon which 
the student can draw for special uses without extra 
demands upon his time. Another result is that the 
student comes unconsciously to put phj^sical training in 
its proper place. It is simply a valued and honored 
means to a higher end. And so, our students who have 
the ability to win other honors are rarely satisfied with 
honors in athletics alone, however prominent may be 
their position. Neither does the athlete find that the 
faculty has given up other expectations of him, provided 
that he is capable of distinguishing himself in other 
directions. 

In my own department, which is that of rhetoric and 
public speaking, I look in each class lai'gely to the men 
excelling in athletics as the men who are to excel in 
writing and speaking. When I am sometimes asked 
with surprise why this is so, my answer is, Why not ? 
what is more natural ? The physical development and 
training not only give what is in part an essential basis 
of the orator, but the discipline of the base-ball, football, 
and general athletic field also begets an alertness of 
mind, an intensity of will, a force of character, and 
especially an ability to command all of one's resources, 



LETTERS FROM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 103 

physical, mental, and moral, for an instant purpose, which 
are alwaj^s necessary to give to public speech the per- 
sonal qualities that only can make it largely and highly 
effective. This is not simply theory. At our Junior 
Exhibition, in which the best ten writers and speakers 
of their class compete for prizes in the delivery of origi- 
nal orations, three captains of the base-ball team and 
three gymnasium captains have, within six years, been 
prominent competitors. Because of the expected appear- 
ance of this class of men at these competitions the time 
of the exhibition has recently been changed. Hereto- 
fore the exhibition has come on the evening of the da}^ of 
a gymnasium contest and a league game of base-ball. 
But as this arrangement, while adding interest to the 
day, has placed the athletic men at such disadvantage 
in literary competitions, the exhibition has been put at 
another time than that of the gymnastic and base-ball 
contests. 

W. H. Lewis, captain of the '92 football eleven, won, 
commencement week, the first prize at the Hardy Debate, 
and the equivalent of the Hyde prize in oratory. C. J. 
Sullivan of the same class, and captain of the base-ball 
team for three years, was a Kellog prize speaker, fresh- 
man year, and a Lester prize orator, junior year. A. E. 
Stearns, the present base-ball captain, has had the same 
honors, and has been appointed class orator commence- 
ment week. K. G. Colby, the pitcher, has already won 
honors as a writer and a speaker. Other members of the 
team, last year, had special distinction in the same lines, 
as will probably be the case this year. 

Nor do our students who excel in football, base-ball, 
and general athletics fail to be represented in the honors 
which go with high scholarship. Of the members of 
the three elevens standing in the first half of the class 
six Avere leading scholars. 

It seems, therefore, that there is no necessary antagon- 



104 FOOTBALL TACTS AND FIGURES 

ism between physical and mental excellence as the 
results of athletic sports and contests. Neither is it 
inevitable that physical superiority, as shown in such 
sports and contests, is to create false standards, and to 
have a value in the minds of students other than its true 
worth. 

Henry A. Frink, Professor Logic. 

Beloit College. 

Mr. Atkinson has referred to me your communi- 
cation relative to the effect of football upon the 
students of the college. I have no hesitancy in saying 
that the effect has been valuable in every way. It is 
noticeable that in a majority of cases scholarship is 
improved by reason of the training received in football. 
Severe as the bodily exercise is at times, it seems to react 
favorably upon the mental powers. 

While it is frequently true that our best athletes and 
football players are not our best scholars, yet in a 
majority of cases their scholarship improves while they 
are undergoing training. There ai*e some notable 
instances in the college in which men have been aroused 
to better work in their studies, have lost their old-time 
indifference, simply because of their work upon the 
team. 

Their experience there has given them new life and 
new interest. The faculty has recognized this fact and 
has removed the old requirement that students must 
stand seventy-five before they can take part in base-ball 
or football. They are now on the same plane as other 
students in the matter of standing, that is, any student 
can go on to the football squad provided his standing is 
above seventy. The results of football on discipline are 
noteworthy. 

The rowdiness and lawlessness which so often in the 
past have characterized portions of the student body 



LETTERS FROM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 105 

have disappeared. Men find a more legitimate outlet 
for their animal spirits in the training of the football 
field. I like the bearing of the men ; they seem to me to 
be above the average in manliness. The qualities of self- 
reliance, coolness, resourcefulness are the especial prop- 
erty of football men, and it is well to note that these quali- 
ties are not gained in the class-room. Football has been 
of inestimable value here in arousing college spirit and 
enthusiasm. Many colleges like Beloit, with 250 or 300 
students, lack that esprit cle corps which is so remark- 
able a feature in many Eastern institutions. 

Football in Beloit the past year has aroused this spirit ; 
it has welded the students into one compact whole, and 
given them a unity of feeling and purpose such as is 
rarely seen here. College loyalty has especially been 
developed, and that alone has justified the existence of 
football here. In doing this sort of work football has 
rendered a great but unappreciated service. Cut out 
from the student's life the enthusiasms and experiences 
connected with the athletic field and you blot out the 
most exhilarating and stimulating portion of his college 
life, that portion which will longest live in his memory'-, 
and longest live to cheer him. Athletics, as represented 
in football and in other lines, give the students experi- 
ences which they cannot afford to be without and which 
will be of lasting benefit. I feel perfecth' justified in 
saying that football has been a blessing to Beloit College 
and to the students in every way ; only those who wil- 
fully sliut their eyes to the fact can deny it. 
Sincerely yours, 

Geo. L. Collie. 

BowDoiN" College. 
The genuine interest manifested by the members of 
the college faculty goes far to prove the hearty 
approval with Avhich football is regarded in Bowdoin 



106 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

College. Excesses and many objectionable features 
which have developed in many institutions are by no 
means so apparent with us. 

Football, when played in an honest, manly way (as I 
believe it is here), is regarded as a healthful and bene- 
ficial sport. Yet its faults are by no means overlooked, 
and among the latter I should surely mention the ten- 
dency toward " mass " and "momentum" plays, which 
has of late been so widely and justly criticised. 

I may add that it is a noteworthy fact (I think ours 
not an exceptional case) that, with us, the majority of 
football players are men of high standing in their 
classes. So far, at least, participation in this game seems 
in no wise to have interfered badly with the routine 
work of the college. 

Geoege T. Files. 

Brown University. 
From twenty years' experience I am satisfied that the 
influence of intercollegiate athletic contests is beneficial 
to the great body of students. Severe restrictions on 
the part of the faculty are not so much needed as sym- 
pathetic guidance. I do not think football at present 
so desirable as general athletics or base-ball, but prefer 
it to boating for intercollegiate contests. 
Yours respectfully, 

Nathl. F. Davis. 

The College op the City of New York. 
Casual observation for many years, during which the 
manner of playing football has had many changes, does 
not indicate to me that the game has had anj'^ effect, 
either good or bad, upon the scholarship or discipline of 
our students. Probably this is due to the circumstance 
that few of our students play the game, owing to the 
fact that practice grounds are not easily accessible, and 



LETTERS PROM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 107 

most of our students are not physically eligible for a 
team. 

Very truly, 

FitzGerald Tisdall. 

Colorado College. 
I may say that in the short time I have been con- 
nected with Colorado College and Cutler Academy, 
athletics have been wholesome in their effect on the 
Avhole life of our students. The fact that we are too 
far away from competing teams, and that money is too 
scarce to make great expenditure possible, may account 
for the wholly good influence which I am satisfied our 
sports have produced. 

I am much interested in the investigation you are 
making and wish I might give you something of 
greater value. 

Veiy truly yours, 

M. C. GiLE. 

P. S. — I have handed the statistical part of your 
enquiry to our captain. 

Sibley College, Cornell University. 
The influence of athletic sports upon the student body 
in a great university is, in my opinion, intrinsically 
excellent. Like all other good things it is subject to 
abuses, and evil may at times result in so large a degree 
as to compel the question. Does it pay to have even so 
good a thing at such a cost in morals and manners ? 
The answer seems obvious enough : It always paj^s to 
have a good thing ; and the attendant evils, not the 
good thing itself, are what it does not pay to have. 
Two wrongs do not make a right, and the error of abol- 
ishing athletic sports, even the roughest and most war- 
like among them, being added to those in which originate 
the wrongs which attend their mismanagement, only 



108 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

leaves us doubly unfortunate. The right course seems 
to me to amend the wrong, not to add a second and 
possibly greater one to the first. 

The athletic sports of the students of Cornell Univer- 
sity, as an example, are managed by an athletic council 
composed of delegates from students and faculty inter- 
ested in and familiar with all technical and practical details 
and experienced in their management. The students tak- 
ing part in all organized exercises and contests are under 
the strictest discipline, are regular in habits, steady in 
their practice, and on the whole the best regulated men 
in the University. The one possible objection to their 
taking part in organized and serious contests, and the 
extended and arduous preliminary training necessarily 
prescribed, is the tendency to infringe upon time which 
should be devoted to their regular university and other 
duties. But experience shows that a man may, if he 
choose, keep up his training without in the slightest 
degree neglecting his studies ; and it even often hap- 
pens that the best men in athletics are among the best 
in the classes. The fact is that the time given to prac- 
tice is time which should be given to exercise by all, 
and no loss results if that practice is not made unreason- 
ably prolonged and excessively exhausting, compelling 
the student to take time for practice or for rest which 
should be given to other work. This is never really 
necessary, and the autliorities can usually regulate that 
matter. The best students going into athletics, here at 
least, seldom fall behind in consequence ; the less schol- 
arly men who go into these sports are those who would 
probably never excel in scholarship under any circum- 
stances. There is unquestionably a stronger inclination 
among the latter to take up athletics than among the 
former ; but the result is the removal of their operations 
from the billiard room to the athletic field, and the 
placing of their otherwise unregulated ways under 



LETTERS FROM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 109 

strict supervision by trainers and athletic council. 
Their " superfluous energies " are given the best possible 
direction under the best possible guidance and with best 
results to themselves and their neighbors. 

The athletic exercises are indisputably admirable and 
desirable from every point of view ; and this fundamen- 
tal fact has, I think, never been challenged. All the 
Greeks rejoiced in the Olj^mpian games, and every man 
of them was glad of an opportunity to Avitness them 
and proud of the distinction when permitted to take 
part. Athletic sports are vastly more desirable, and 
their universal cultivation is more important, to the 
modern "civilized" youth than to the Greek. Depre- 
ciated in constitution and weakened in every physical 
power by modern life and the tendency to use the men- 
tal rather than the bodily capacities, only general 
improvement in habits of life and of exercise can prevent 
the now apparently inevitable degradation of the phy- 
sique of the race. This reform can be best effected by 
the colleges setting the example of regular, correct, and 
sensible methods of athletic exercise and illustrating the 
best kinds of gymnastic contests and practice. It is for 
them to improve and correct, not to abuse and abolish, 
the most essential element of better life for the nation, 
the basis of moral and intellectual as Avell as physical 
strength. 

I would encourage all desirable forms of athletic 
exercise ; all generous rivalry between individuals and 
between colleges in every game which brings out the 
qualities of courage, strength, agility, skill, and endur- 
ance. I would have " meets " at the colleges, contests 
between well-matched rival teams from different colleges, 
an annual international series of games — Olympian 
games, with all the improvement that the experience 
and wisdom of the intervening centuries can offer. I 
would have all these exercises and games under careful 



110 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

and experienced and conscientious management, throw- 
ing out of formal contests all whose presence on the 
teams and crews may be considered undesirable on any 
score, relegating them to the gymnasium for systematic 
training with the rest of the undistinguished mass. I 
would have it understood that he who would represent 
the college abroad must be known to be in every way 
respectable, in habits of life, of study, and of morals and 
manners. I would have the men kept under constant 
supervision by the medical oflB.cer, and every man given 
his method and his limit under the advice of that officer. 
Men failing to creditably represent the college at home 
or abroad should be dropped out of the teams or crews, 
if not out of the college. 

The advantages of the prosecution of athletic training 
in colleges, and of athletic " sports " as well, seem to me, 
properly directed, incalculable ; the evils at present un- 
questionably often attendant upon them may be and 
should be remedied. I would not abolish the right with 
the wrong, but would cultivate to the utmost the splen- 
did work of the gymnast and of the " athlete," pruning 
away as completely and as rapidly as possible every 
attendant evil. Once our people have acquired a fond- 
ness for "athletics," and have begun to regain that 
athletic body which only can hold safely " the soul of 
the sage," the American continent will have a future 
before it such as only a modernized Greece can aspire to 
attain. Something of this kind can be already seen, I 
am told, in the antipodean continent ; but there is no 
reason why, with wise management in our colleges, the 
young men — and the young women as well — in the 
the United States of North America should not take the 
lead and finally excel the ancient Greeks themselves in 
physical and in mental power. 

R. H. Thukston. 



letters from members of the faculty 111 

Cornell University. 
There are undoubtedly individual cases in which 
football training and football enthusiasm have inter- 
fered temporarily with men's studies. Like any out- 
side interest it may be allowed by students to intrude 
itself too far upon their time and thought, but it is not 
the rule that it does. Football practice does not make 
any unreasonable demands upon a man's time. He 
gives no more to it generally than any one should give 
to daily bodily exercise. If a college football team 
were allowed to make, during the fall term, long and 
frequent trips to play games, the result would be an 
almost certain interference with the proper demands of 
study. Absence from the college for five or six dajs in 
all during the term is not likel}^ to involve a serious 
interference with work. It has been in general our 
experience that our football players maintain a good 
standard of scholarship. The training for the game, 
and indeed, so far as I can see, the general influence of 
the game as a whole, tends to the production of manly, 
earnest character, to the throttling of pettishness and 
peevishness, and to the establishment of habits of 
punctuality, of a sense for discipline and authority'', of 
a readiness for co-operation, and, last and chiefest, of 
the capacity for timely and unhesitating action. 

The influence of the game upon college discipline, 
that is, upon good order in academic life, has been 
unmistakably salutary. 

Benj, Ide Wheeler. 

Cornell University. 
In response to your request, via the hands of our 
football captain, I write to tell you that I am very 
familar with the physical condition of those of our 
students who pla}^ football, and that I know of no 
instance among Cornell students where a man's use- 



112 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

fulness has been permanently impaired or his life 
shortened through the game. Nor do I believe the 
game lowers scholarship of the players. 
Very truly, 

E, Hitchcock, Je., M. D. 

• Feom Peofessor at Daetmouth.* 

It is difficult, if not impossible, to state the facts con- 
cerning football with numerical accuracy. For the 
injuries in the game range through all shades and 
degrees of mental and bodily damage, from torn 
trousers or a loss of confidence up to (we are told) 
insanity or a broken neck. Apparent disability is not 
always a sign of real damage. 

Then, in attempting a serious reckoning there is 
a difficulty in separating fresh injuries and temporary 
aggravation of old ones. 

It is, however, to be admitted that there are some 
risks and some injuries in the game. 

In the last season the eleven had perhaps forty 
practice games with a second eleven, involving at least 
22 men each time. This represents 880 men playing 
once. 

The same team had vigorous contests with elevens 
representing Harvai'd, Yale, Trinity, Amherst, Williams, 
and others. This represents 220 men playing once. 

The freshmen and sophomores played, and each of 
the classes played, at least one outside game. This 
represents 66 men playing once. 

On Thanksgiving Day four student elevens played, 

*This letter seemed to put the case so strongly that, after 
making a copy of it, I took the original with me to the St. 
Botolph Club in Boston at the time of a smoke-talk upon foot- 
ball. There I must have mislaid it, so that I have lost the sig- 
nature of the writer, for which I am extremely sorry. — Walter 
Camp. 



LETTERS FROM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 113 

the pla3^ers, with a few exceptions, being entirely 
untrained. This represents 44 men playing once. 

This gives a minimum estimate of 1210 men plaj^ing 
once, in all degrees of fitness and unfitness for the 
game. 

I did not witness all these game and cannot speak 
with certainty, but with reasonable confidence, subject 
to correction. The injuries were bruises about tlie 
head and knees, sprained ankles, strained muscles and 
ligaments. I estimate the number of fresh disabling 
injuries at 20. Most of them were slight and tem- 
porary, and complete recovery was made before the 
close of the season in nearly every case. I know of 
but one injury that might be called permanent in the 
whole number given above. Its effects have continued 
to the present time, but are j^assing away. 

In estimating the dangers of football it seems fair 
to compare it with other out-door sports involving 
strength, skill, and some excitement, like base-ball, 
swimming, hunting, coasting, riding, from none of 
which is the element of risk and danger eliminated, 
and not with sitting in a rocking-chair or playing 
checkers. 

The question of risk, unless it should be shown to be 
excessive, ought not to weigh against the game ; be- 
cause risk is the element in which a boy lives through 
all his development from infancy to manhood. Through 
physical and moral risk, and in no other way, comes 
manl)'^ strength. 

Nor will it help to call this needless risk, because in 
a certain sense all risks are needless. By not doing 
sometliing, or by doing sometliing else, any given risk 
might be avoided. If the boy doesn't take the risk of 
an athletic game, he takes a risk in doing something 
else with his time. 

The fact is that, in this particular phase of the foot- 
8 



114 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

/ 

ball question, the outcry is ever done from lack of ap- 
preciation of the whole nature and history of a boy. 
Boys are bound to cause solicitude and anxiety from 
the time they put things in their mouth, tumble over 
the foot-board of their cribs, play with the fire, use 
a jack-knife, climb trees, and go swimming, till they 
reach man's estate, and it is a happy parent who has 
only bodily dangers to worry over. The other risks 
are infinitely worse. 

DePauvt Univeksity. 

There is in the faculty at DePauw, precisely as in 
most other institutions where football is played, a wide 
divergence of opinion as to the effects of football upon 
the scholarship and discipline of the students. In 
writing I express my own opinions and conclusions, but 
do not attempt to speak for any other instructor. I am 
persuaded that football improves both the scholarship 
and discipline of our students. We have restrictive 
rules governing intercollegiate sports by which students 
must gain and maintain a certain standard in scholar- 
ship before they can participate in intercollegiate 
athletics. Aside from the stimulating effect of these 
rules, there are always students on the team who find 
the exercise incident to play exactly what they need to 
put them in the most effective mental condition. 

So far as discipline is concerned the effects of football 
have been even more marked. The worst, most brutal 
feature of college life has always been hazing. Foot- 
ball coming at a season when in former years hazing was 
most prevalent, and furnishing a natural and healthy 
exhaust pipe for surplus energy, has revolutionized the 
moral tone of our college during the fall term and made 
hazing practically a thing of the past. 

I have no sympathy with the exaggerations with 
reference to football which filled the press last fall, and 



LETTERS FROM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 115 

know that the reported fatalities in football games on 
being sifted left just one instance. I have talked several 
times with one young man who was reported killed, and 
who it is commonly believed is dead — a victim to foot- 
ball. Yet I wish something might be done to remove 
features in the sport really objectionable and to preserve 
the sport for a place in college life that nothing else 
can fill. 

Yours truly, 

C. A. Waldo. 

Haverford College. 

1. There is some loss to the scholarship of a part of 
the team during the football season. I apprehend this 
is largely recovered by the end of the year on account 
partly of the good physical condition of the players at 
the end of the season. 

2. There is probably some loss to the spirit of abso- 
lutely fair play involved in meeting college teams where 
such a spirit does not exist. The supposed necessity of 
straining, or in an undiscovered wa}^ breaking the rules 
in order to check similar unfairness on the other side, 
I think acts injuriously on the moral standard of some 
students. 

These two objections are in my opinion much over- 
weighted by the abounding good health cultivated by 
the players, who in our college constitute a large pro- 
portion of the students ; by the correct moral and 
hygienic habits induced by training ; by the vigor 
which the game infuses in Avhat might be otherwise an 
easy-going college ; and by tlie harmonious relations 
developed by a common interest between faculty and 
students. This last factor especially has had an impor- 
tant effect in raising the standard both of scholarshij) 
and discipline. 

Could the game be raised to the high standard of 



116 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

play which characterizes our other college - game — 
cricket — I could endorse it almost unreservedly. It 
unfortunately shields offenders against the rules, and all 
colleges do not yet have their public sentiment raised to 
the point which demands above all things fairness, even 
at the price of defeat. I think this standard is rising, 
and hope for the best. 

Isaac Shakpless. 

Iowa College. 

For another purpose I about three months ago tab- 
ulated the grades of all athletes, and all men in the 
college during three years, 1890-1893. The number of 
athletes includes football men, track athletes, and base- 
ball players — regular members of teams and such sub- 
stitutes as spent about the same amount of time in 
training. Since here the three branches require approx- 
imately the same amount of time, the figures may be 
taken to represent in a general way the relation of the 
standing of the football men and non-athletic men. 
Standing of athletes in per cent., 79.3. Standing of all 
male non-athletic students, 80.5 per cent. 

My impression is that these figures may be taken as 
fairly reliable, i. e., in general the standing of athletes 
is slightly lower. 

It is customary for our football and base-ball teams to 
make trips outside the State once a year, at the expense 
of four or five school-days. 

I should be pleased to receive any printed reports of 
the committee having in charge the revision of the foot- 
ball rules or other changes for the better regulation of 
athletic sports. I am. 

Very respectfully yours, 

W. S. Hendrixson, 
Chairman Committee on Athletics, 



LETTERS FROM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 117 

Report of the Director of the Men's Gymnasium and 
Professor of Physiology 

Oberlin College. 
Interest in atliletics has been increasing, with as yet 
few signs of those excesses and irregularities which have 
caused uneasiness among educators in the East. The 
class and 'varsity football games in the fall furnished 
to sixty college men from one to two hours of vigorous 
open-air exercise each day and stimulated many others 
to seek improved phj^sical condition. The accidents, 
and noticeably on the 'varsity team, were trivial in 
nature, and were the cause of only one case of absence 
from classes. Of the sixteen men who played on the 
'varsity football team during a part or all of the season 
six reached a standing of over 90 per cent, in their studies 
for the same term, and ten exceeded 80 per cent., while 
of sixteen men on the senior class team only two fell 
below a grade of 80 ; and eight stood above 90 ; so that 
the standard of scholarship has not apparently suffered. 
Respectfully, 

Fred E. Leonard, M. D. 

Ohio Wesletan University. 
As a member of the faculty, I can state that I con- 
sider football a manly, elevating, and scientific game ; 
although I would prefer to see the rules changed in 
order to make it less rough and dangerous. A modifi- 
cation of the rules that would tend to substitute more 
skill and agility for the now preponderating element of 
brute strength would meet with my approval. I am 
bound to say that I am afraid that I do not represent 
the faculty, in toto, at this institution, in this regard, 
as I think they are rather opposed to athletics in gen- 
eral, or rather are not yet believers in the practical 
benefits of systematic athletics. 



118 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

If I can assist you further in your work, please cor- 
respond with me. 

I remain, yours very truly, 

C. D. Rhodes, U. S. Army, 
Professor Military Science and Tactics. 

Pennsylvania College, 
I have not carefully compiled data on this subject, 
but from my general observation here during the past 
five years I can confidently assert that the sport has not 
interfered with the scholarship of the participants. I 
wish I could say that it has noticeably aided scholar- 
ship, and that those students distinguished for football 
proficiency are also noted for their close application to 
their studies. Although I cannot say that, yet I am 
pleased to note that our football men are truly represent- 
ative of the "rank and file" of our students in scholar- 
ship and deportment. The game is not here regarded 
as deteriorating either to mind or morals, but rather as 
disciplinary to both. 

In regard to the second part of your question, I am 
pleased to almost boast of the fact that general athletics, 
and football in particular, has a very beneficial effect on 
the discipline of the institution. The occurrence of 
college pranks and rowdyisms have very materially 
lessened since the spirit of athletics has become more 
prevalent among us. The occasional exceptions to this 
gratifying growth in grace are no doubt due to the stub- 
born existence of "original sin," which neither football 
nor any other pre-millennial influence will ever eradicate. 
I am very much interested in this sport, and I sin- 
cerely hope that your committee will not only aim to 
make it still more scientific and interesting from a 
strategic standpoint, but that you will also make it 
somewhat less dangerous to life and limb. I trust this 
can be done without robbing the game of its intrinsic 



LETTERS FROM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 119 

features. As a physician I am positive that more bodily 
and mental benefits could be derived if the game were 
less severe ; and as a theorist in physical sports, I am 
timidly hoping that it may be possible to make the 
game safer and yet not emasculate it. 

Allow me to thank you for the healthy influence 
which ""\Valter Camp of Yale" is exerting on football 
discussions and regulations. The American colleges 
must depend on him and other level-headed university 
men to frame the rules and set the bounds for this great 
sport. 

Yours very sincerely, 

G. D. Stahlet. 

Princeton, N. J. 

In my opinion the value of football, as conducted 
during the last fifteen or twenty years, has been very 
great, indeed. It is a manly, healthful sport, and has 
fewer accidents incidental to its pursuit than most other 
vigorous autumn and winter games. It interests large 
numbers of young men who would otherwise waste the 
time given to its pursuit. It sets among the students 
in general a fashion of living vastly more wholesomely 
than that which prevailed in college life before its intro- 
duction. It unifies the divergent interest of a large 
institution so as to create a strong university feeling. 

The evils which have arisen out of a too intense 
public interest in college sport are manifest. In my 
opinion tlie turn has been made ; the interest of the 
general public appears to be assuming normal propor- 
tions, the rules of the game have been wisely revised, 
and we may hope to secure college audiences for college 
games. If we succeed in this, the evils which actually 
spring from too great enthusiasm among students will 
be reduced to a minimum, while those inherent in 
modern life will not be attributed to football. 



120 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGTJEES 

The compilation from official records of the sub- 
joined table has taken more time than would appear 
from its size. The records are authentic. 



First Honor Men (First in Class), 
High " " above 95 per cent., 
Second " " " 90 " 
Good, " 75 " 

Low, " 50 " 

Failed, . . . 



Football 


Base-ball 


1 


2 


23 


13 


. 31 


17 


29 


30 


. 37 


34 


8 


3 


. 129 


99 



Totals, . 

These include only the men who have played in first- 
class games since 1874. 

I wish we had a record of the so-called " scrubs," i. e., 
the players organized to give the university teams 
practice — the numbers would be about four hundred and 
the proportion of scholarship very high. It is simply 
untrue that any man is allowed to go on with his class 
merely because he is a fine athlete. The pressure 
brought on good athletes to study is twofold, that of 
his companions who do not wish to lose his services and 
that of our overjealous faculty which " turn down " 
many a man who is a promising athlete when otherwise 
he would be permitted to make iip his deficiencies in 
obscurity. 

Ever faithfully yours, 

Wm. M. Sloane. 

Rtttgees College. 
The football exercise of our college has hardly been 
pursued during the past two years in a regular enough 
way to make any judgment as to its effect of very much 
account. The students who have engaged in it have 
been of average scholarship, and no ill results, as far as I 
can judge, have come from the game. Nor do I think 



LETTERS FROM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 121 

the game has had any appreciable effect upon college 
discipline. It has simply afforded those who were 
inclined to it a means of recreation, and given them tlie 
opportunity of measuring a very moderate degree of 
skill, derived from irregular practice, with that of the 
teams of a few of the smaller colleges. Perhaps the 
stimulus of a new gymnasium may change this in the 
future. 

With regards I am, 

Yours truly, 

Wm, R. Duryee. 

Leland Stanford Junior University. 

The actual football playing does not injure or lower 
the scholarship, but improves it by keeping the men 
in better organic condition for any kind of work or 
study. As a matter of fact some of our football 
men are among the best, others among the poorest 
students we have. If football lowers scholarship it is 
due to time lost in thinking and talking about the game 
and general loafing, and some little from injuries. The 
effect, as of other athletics, is good upon college dis- 
cipline. About thirty-five men each year have played 
more or less during the season. I regret that so many 
students stand idly by, da}'" after day, looking on at 
practice as well as games. They are better so than 
cooped up in the house, but they, as idle spectators, are 
not making the best use of their time. College athletics 
engage too few men. This is not the fault of any one 
game, but we must have more games. College students 
must not take their out-door exercise by proxy. 

Financially our football seasons have been unsuc- 
cessful, as we are in debt again this year. Nearly all 
receipts have come from games, and the expenses have 
been greater than receipts. 

Personally, I believe in the game, although some 



122 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

features must be eliminated. Any condition which in- 
trinsically makes the play dangerous for a well-trained 
player, such as momentum plays, must be cut out. 
Accidents will always be possible in the game. It is 
the best game for a strong, maticre, well-trained young 
man. 

I await the revision of the rules for next fall with 
great interest. Please call my attention to develop- 
ments. 

Yours very truly, 

T. D. Wood. 

SWARTHMORE CoLLEGE. 

College life has two aspects — its work and its recre- 
ation. The primary purpose of the first is the culti- 
vating of the mind, that of the second the development 
of the body. Hard study gives zest to play, and play 
tones up the nerves for their work. All approve of 
enthusiasm in study, but some disapprove of it in recre- 
ation. The colt must not be coltish, but must conduct him- 
self like the staid and tired work-horse. But the enthu- 
siasms of recreation, when kept within reasonable limits, 
are as useful in their way as those of work. By and 
by all the energy, pluck, and determination developed 
on the athletic field will be focussed upon the affairs of 
life. He is a fool from the beginning Avho would turn 
his recreations into his business. It is right and proper, 
and hence advisable, that every child or youth should 
have the free opportunity to exercise the zest of life in 
every way in which this gift of Heaven may properly 
manifest itself, whether in the study room or the work- 
shop, or on the play ground or the athletic field. A 
bright mind and a stupid body are not co-oi'dinates. 
During his student days the youth must look to his 
physical enthusiasms to develop his body ; in his busi- 
ness career he must depend upon the enthusiasms of 



I 



LETTERS FROM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 123 

his recreation to cultivate his mind, to keep himself in 
active touch with the S3anpathies and tendencies of his 
time. 

Since the facts hold, it is not surprising that at 
Swarthmore football, the prince of athletic sports, 
should be one of the most useful means of developing 
and sustaining the enthusiasms properly belonging to 
all forms of physical recreation. That the rules of the 
game need to be changed, so that the danger of sprains 
and broken bones may be largely eliminated, is an un- 
questionable fact. Except in rare cases, where men 
desire to make football their occupation, I do not think 
that the game unfavorably affects scholarship at Swarth- 
more. I know that its effects upon the college discipline 
are only good, and that it is the most potent factor in 
developing all legitimate forms of what I have called 
the enthusiasms of recreation. 

Charles De Garmo. 

Trinity College. 
1. Effect of the sport upon scholarship : 
I have kept watch of our class records for years, and 
can find no evidence of connection between class-stand- 
ing and athletic distinction on which any conclusions 
can be based, beyond generalities. The football man is 
apt to be in the middle third of his class. More of 
them are in the first third than in the last third. We 
find their names among our prize-winners and honor 
men. Once, recentlv, the valedictorian was a noted 
player, who could probably have played upon any team 
in the country. Yet it is unusual for the first three or 
four scholars in any class to play in our first eleven — 
just as it is unusual for the last three or four. I am 
quite sure that the captain and a few of his veteran 
advisers are preoccupied, during the football season, to 
an extent which interferes with their studies ; but it is 



124 FOOTBALL FACTS AISTD FIGURES 

a revelation to see how they pick up and make good 
their deficiencies after the final game. I fear that this 
mental preoccupation increases as football improves 
and its scientific possibilities are developed. To repeat — 
the average standing of the football players is about 
the average standing of the college, the exceptionally 
good and the exceptionally poor scholars being, as a rule, 
those who do not play. 

2. Its effect upon college discipline : 

I think this to be thoroughly good. Reasons have been 
pointed out by many writers, notably by yourself. The 
football man is full of " steam " and the game is his 
safety-valve. I was much impressed, a while ago, by 
an incident which came under my observation. I was 
sitting, in the evening, in the room of the captain of 
our eleven talking with him — probably about football. 
It seems that some sort of disturbance was in progress 
in a distant part of the college grounds. 

Suddenly the door was flung violently open and a 
student appeared breathless. He blurted out (not seeing 

me) : "There's a row down in , and , and , 

and (football men) are in it." In a second I was alone 

in the room and in five minutes — as I took pains to 
ascertain later — the three guilty parties were conducted 
to their rooms. The "row" subsided almost immedi- 
ately. To be sure tlie captain at this time was a youth 
of extraordinary force of character : but the incident 
teaches something worth knowing. 

3. Total number of men engaged, etc. : 

I have just been carefully through our catalogue list, 
assisted by the captain of last season's team, and find 
that what with the various class elevens and " scrub " 
teams fully one-third of our students played two or three 
times a week last autumn. A much larger number were 
in the habit of kicking the ball about occasionally and of 
" fooling " with it in a decorous and salutary manner. 



LETTERS FROM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 125 

Perhaps I should explain that hitherto I have desig- 
nated as " football men " only those who can fairly be 
regarded as members of the college team or as substi- 
tutes on it. My remarks as to scholarship, etc., of course 
apply only to these regular players. 

4. Finances : 

We have the gate receipts, of course, but subscrip- 
tions by students and friends are always required. 

Our association is usually " hard-up " and a rainy day 
when a match is scheduled is a financial calamity. 

Sometimes there is a small surplus at the end of the 
season, but such incidents are rare, and there is never 
the slightest difficulty in reducing the surplus promptly 
and thoroughly. 

I think, personally (you did not ask this), that our 
team, with the teams of other small colleges, travels too 
much, plays too many games, spends too much money. 

And, finally'', may I take this opportunity to protest 
against any radical change in the playing rules? Give 
us ffood referees and umjnres — men who will fearlessly 
and impartially enforce the rules, provide against piling 
upon a player after the ball is "down," and let us 
alone. Every serious accident which I have ever wit- 
nessed, and I have seen many, has occurred in an " open " 
phase of the game ; that is, when the man with the ball 
has been able to get under full headway at speed. 

The faults with the game, its alleged brutalities, can 
be corrected by good umpires and referees. 
Yours very truly, 

F. S. Luther. 

Union College. 
I believe that the playing of football is, in general, 
detrimental to the scholarship of the men on the team. 
The physical exertion is so severe that sustained mental 
effort is made impossible. 



126 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGUEES 

The effect upon college discipline is, I think, good. 
Much animal activity, that would otherwise manifest 
itself in disorderly conduct, finds a place for its energies 
on the football field. The team and substitutes are 
kept under rigid discipline, and their abstinence from all 
manner of dissipation is a good example to the college. 

This is, of course, beneficial to the general scholarship 
of the college. B. H. Ripton". 

University of California. 

I have not noticed in my own classes any particular 
effect upon the scholarship of the men actually engaged 
in football. In a few cases, before a great game, men 
have asked and received indulgence in regard to their 
lessons for a few days, but have afterward made up what 
was lost. 

I think the effect of the game on college discipline 
is excellent. There has been much less of lawless 
behavior among the students since football became a 
real college interest. 

I cannot form an estimate of the number in college 
who actually play football. Last fall there were four class 
elevens, but of course many more played. Neither can I 
guess how many are taken out doors by interest in the 
game, although large crowds watch the practice. 

The rather large yearly expenses ($4000-$6000) are 
mainly met by gate money, though last fall there was 
a deficit of about seven hundred dollars, owing to rain 
on the day of the great game with Stanford. This 
amount is met by subscription. 

Yours ever, 

Thos. R. Bacon. 

The University of Chicago. 
The University of Chicago has been in existence 
dui'ing only two football seasons, so our statistics can- 



LETTERS FROM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 127 

not be of great value to you. We have not had a very 
large number trying for our teams. In fact, scarcely 
two elevens have been upon the field in practice on the 
same day. Our training likewise has not been nearly 
so rigid as teams in the East are accustomed to, and 
hardly more than an hour a day has been devoted to 
practice. I cannot speak of any special effect which 
the training has liad on college discipline, since we have 
had no trouble in controlling the students as yet. 
There is not much else to be said in regard to the 
financial side of our football team. Our expenses last 
year, which were almost entirely in guarantees and 
travelling expenses, amounted to nearly $1400. Re- 
ceipts about $2000. Football has done a great deal 
toward arousing college spirit where little or none 
existed, so we feel it has been of special value in our 
university life. In fact our athletics have done more 
to create a college spirit than all the rest of the student 
organizations. I am glad that you have undei'taken this 
work, and I hope that you will get some valuable 
statistics which will serve for the good of the game. 

Sincerely, 

A. A, Stagg. 

State University of Iowa. 
We have a rule which excludes any collegiate student 
from membership in a university team if his standing 
falls below 75 per cent. (65 per cent, is the passing 
mark). Football has been played regularly here only 
some four or five years. During this time the leading 
players have been leading students, both in the class- 
room and in the college forum. The average scholar- 
ship of our teams has been above, rather than below, the 
average scholarship of the university. This statement 
is based upon a general acquaintance with the teams ; it 
is not the result of an exact investigation. The game 



128 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

has the cordial support of our faculty, but within the 
last year a strong desire for a change in the rules, to 
lessen the risk to the plaj'^er, has developed. While 
none of our players have been permanently injured, they 
have been laid up for short intervals with what seems 
to us unnecessary frequency ; and there is some fear 
that some of the so-called temporary injuries may leave 
their mark. In the professional schools no rule fixing 
a minimum average of scholarship as a condition of 
membei'ship is applied, and general statements are more 
difficult to make. The law school has furnished so far 
the largest, proportion of players from the professional 
schools. I am, sir, 

Very sincerely yours, 

Isaac Loos. 

University op Nashville. 
We allowed our football team a large measure of 
liberty last year, and see no reason for abridging it this. 
No students were seriously hurt. No bad effects on 
scholarship. College spirit greatly quickened. We ai-e 
not allowing football because thereby the institution 
will be advertised, but because we see in it good to the 
students, from a physical standpoint. Football is a com- 
paratively new thing with us, and our team is not so 
strong as it will be made by training. We have good 
material and hope for better things next fall. 
Yours truly, 

John L. Lampson, 
President Athletic Association. 

University of Nashville. 
My position enabled me to notice the effects of the 
game on the students who took part in it liere last sea- 
son ; these effects were undoubtedly good, both mentally 
and physically. 



LETTERS FROM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 129 

The good standing of the football men in their classes 
is due to the regularity of habits, and health gained by 
them in training. 

Yours truly, 

Jno. D, MacRae, 

Captain of Field Sports. 

University of Pennsylvania. 

Your list of questions and letter received to-day. In 
giving my opinion of the game, I will omit all the often 
repeated and perfectly true arguments about its culti- 
vation of energ}^, continuity, forcefulness, self-control, 
strength, fortitude, and health. In those directions the 
game stands unexcelled, in my judgment. 

On the other hand, football is a game in which there 
is actual danger of injury — physical injury. 

The minor injuries can never be entirely eliminated 
from this or any game in which there is personal contact. 

Clianging the rules of the game will not, I am con- 
vinced, materially lessen the injuries. 

Increase of skill \sj\\ do so, however, and this seems 
the more likely, because most players are hurt when not 
playing their best. 

Changes in the rules, then, should be made with jeal- 
ous care and rather for the purpose of making the game 
more interesting to spectators than with a view to pre- 
venting injury to the players. 

The most important change, in ray opinion, would be 
to discourage, as far as possible, this recently born but 
abnormally developed habit of playing baby on the field. 
There should be less delay of the game, less sponging 
during a game, less fuss about injuries already received 
and, consequently, inevitable. If the hurt is great the 
player should leave the field ; if small he should smile 
and play harder. 

There should be cultivated that determination and 
9 



130 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

Spartan-like fortitude, which prevailed in the days 
before water-buckets and sponges and regiments of 
doctors. 

Yours sincerely, 

G. W. Woodruff. 

University of Tennessee. 
We never had any team of any consequence until this 
year, and hence conclusions formed now may be rather 
hasty. As far as I have been able to observe I have not 
thought that the playing of football caused any 
deterioriation in the men except when they went on 
a trip of more than a few days. • In that case they 
returned unfit for work and hardly ever made up what 
they lost. There were no bad results as far as discipline 
is concerned, and I think the allowing them to play 
rendered them more tractable. Most of the players 
have been men of excellent standing in their classes and 
they have suffered little. The others would not have 
amounted to much under the best circumstances, and 
hence we cannot say that playing was detrimental to 
them. As a faculty we rather encourage the game, but, 
as I said above, we object mainly to trips away from the 
university. 

Very truly yours. 

Cooper D. Schmitt. 

University of Wisconsin. 
As " athletic director " of this university it has been 
my privilege to look into Western football critically, and 
I have taken advantage of that privilege. Up to this 
year the team here never had an Eastern coach, but 
played after their own fashion. Last year there were 
several accidents, none however serious. The first thing 
I attempted to teach the men was how to protect them- 
selves and how to fall with some method even in reck- 



LETTERS FKOM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 131 

lessness. Suffice it to say that the team which played 
the first game of the season played every game, substi- 
tutes only being used as a matter of practice. This 
record, I believe, is the same in the other colleges of this 
league, namely, Minnesota, Michigan, and Northwestern, 
all the teams of which, as you probably know, were 
coached by Yale men. 

One serious accident occurred out liere last fall which 
resulted in the death of a player on Delavan's eleven, 
composed of deaf mutes. 

As for myself, I have played football for years, during 
which time I gained fifty pounds in weight, increased 
three inches in heiglit, and five inches in girth of chest, 
with other developments proportionately. I entered 
college undersized, undeveloped, and in very poor 
health from all study and no play, from a section of the 
country where at that time football was unknown. My 
development was gradual, and the unusual vigor and 
physical condition which 1 enjoy to-day I attribute 
solely to football, as I never took a systematic training 
in an}' other sport, though having worked considerably 
in a gymnasium and on the track. As a matter of 
accidents, my only misfortune occurred in a practice 
game at Princeton in which the cartilages of m}-^ nose 
were displaced, but which disabled me no longer than 
twenty minutes. 

Very truly yours, 

Pakke Davis. 

Vaxderbilt University. 
I may say at the beginning that I am a strong advo- 
cate of athletics for the college student, from both 
physical and moral standpoints ; and have been for the 
last fifteen years. I have had many a struggle here to 
maintain my position in these matters, and often I have 
found myself standing almost alone. Now, however, 



132 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

our faculty are almost wholly converted, and athletics 
have such a foothold that dislodgment is an impossi- 
bility. In the last eight years our development in all 
lines of athletics has been marvellous, and during that 
time the moral tone of the student body has been 
greatly elevated. This is remarked and admitted by 
every-body; scholarship has not suffered in the least. In 
fact the average class standing of the men on our teams 
is above that of the university. I believe the tendency 
in the East for an excessive amount of training to 
be required is where the greatest danger lies. This 
undoubtedly necessitates a neglect of college duties 
which will bring athletics into disrepute. We encour- 
age our men to take from two to three hours of training 
each day, and this I believe to be enough for all pur- 
poses, and does not interfere with college work. 

As to football I will say briefly that I consider it the 
greatest of all games to develop the excellent qualities 
of manhood. I believe that the dangers to life and 
limb are very much exaggerated. I believe it can be 
improved by judicious modification of the rules ; just 
how, I cannot say. I hope the committee who have the 
revision of the rules in hand will hit upon some happy 
improvements, which, however, will not encumber the 
game with too many umpires, referees, and other 
officials. I think, however, two umpires very desirable. 
I am glad to see that you are getting up some statis- 
tics, which I am sure will be very valuable. 

Wishing you success in your undertaking, I am, 
Yours very respectfully, 

Wm. L. Dudley. 

State University of Washington. 
The athletic association, under whose auspices our 
games are played, is composed, for the most part, of 
our very best students, while nearly all our team main- 



LETTERS FROM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 133 

tain high standing in their classes. Those taking part 
are sober and industrious. During the last three 
seasons no dissipation, as far as I know, has attended 
the game. 1 must say, then, that with us the influence 
of football has been highly beneficial. Interest in out- 
door sports has been awakened, and as a result our 
young men are in a healthy condition, physically and 
mentally. 

Respectfully, 

T. M. Gatch. 

Wesleyan University. 

Of course my colleagues might not agree Avith all 
that I have to say on the points you mention, but as 
I am perhaps as much interested in the game as any of 
them, I probabl}' am not more severe in my judgments 
than most of them would be. 

1. The question concerning the influence of football 
on scholarsliip is of course a difficult one to answer ; at 
least, to answer as briefly as a letter requires. I do not 
remember that we liave recently had on our team, or 
among prominent candidates for it, any men of a de- 
cidedly scholarly tendency. We used to have such 
men some 3^ears ago, but the pace was not so fast then, 
either in football or in scholarship. On the other hand, 
our undergraduate officers of management are usually 
meJi of high rank, and their testimonj'^ is very decided 
to the effect that during the football season they can 
do no study worth speaking of. And as the pace in 
scholarship, with our tendencies to the multiplication of 
elective studies and the encouragement of specialization, 
is very fast, even for such men, through the entire year, 
they of course are really unable to make up a couple of 
months' lost time. It may not affect their rank de- 
cidedly, but it decidedly affects their actual achievement. 
Then among the players there is the great class of medi- 



134 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

cere men. Possibly some of them do as well even while 
playing football as they would do anyhow. But if so, 
it is only because they might waste their time in some 
other way, if they weren't putting it into football. 
Perhaps we might say that some, at least, of these men 
are not especially injured by their playing. But others, 
I think I can see, are. Then there is the class of fellows 
"on the lower edge." I believe almost all of these 
would pass up, or pass up more easily, if they didn't 
have to put so much of their time for two or three 
months, and surely almost all of their interest and 
nervous energy, into football. In general, then, I think 
football, as the pace is now set, is detrimental to scholar- 
ship here, though, fortunately for scholarship, the best 
material for football and the best material for scholar- 
ship have not often been the same here. And I do not 
see how it is possible that when we demand so entirely 
the interest of a man for football till Thanksgiving, it 
should not interfere seriously with his scholarship. The 
observed facts only confirm the conclusion naturally 
made from probability. 

2. The effect of increased interest in football has been 
decidedly good so far as general college discipline is 
concerned. The animal spirits of the fellows find a 
vent here, in playing or interesting themselves in the 
playing, and do not expend themselves so much in 
practical jokes and petty hazing and class rows. 

3. We find it extremely diflicult here to get out 
a first and a second eleven, and generally the entire 
second eleven isn't worth speaking of. Furthermore, 
we have difiiculty in getting out any good number of 
fellows at the hours of practice to help on the interest 
as spectators, unless we have been winning some de- 
cided victories (alas ! not lately), or seem to be on the 
eve of a probable victory over some strong opponent. 
Our great difiiculty here is lack of sustained enthusiasm 



LETTERS FROM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 135 

among the undergraduates. This, I think, is not due 
solely to the fact that, as the pace in football has been 
quicker, we have sunk in position relatively to many- 
other colleges. It is also due clearly — though I cannot 
and need not, for the purpose of your enquiry, stop to 
specify how — to the great advance here in ideals of 
scholarship during the last few years. I think it is as 
easy as before for a man to select a general course and 
pass on respectably to his degree ; but the prevailing 
tone has been so raised recently that the men with any 
scholarly instincts feel forced to expend far more nervous 
energy upon their special lines of work than they did a 
decade ago. As a result, they havenH it to devote to foot- 
ball, unless under a special and temporary stimulus [e. g., 
a marked victory). Our scholarship goes up, and our 
athletics (this being a small college) go down, of necessity. 

4. We can't " make football pay " here. There is 
a burdensome subscription from undergraduates and 
graduates necessary every year, in addition to what we 
can raise from games, and to some help from the Glee 
Club, etc. (For two reasons, we are in a small town 
and we have no entirely enclosed field, and hence find it 
difficult to enforce payment of admission fees.) I think 
that if you desire it for the purposes of your enquiry, 
Mr. E. L. Thorndike, '95, formerly treasurer and now 
president of our association, will be quite willing to 
send you, at your application, a summary of our receipts 
and expenditures for the past two or tliree years. We 
are very economical, and hence don't run into any pro- 
digious debts, but we are quite used to running our 
heads a few hundred dollars a year into the ground. 

I hope what I have said may be of some use to you, 
and I shall be very glad to answer at any time any 
specific or supplementary enquiries. 
Yours ver}' truly, 

Elmer Truesdell Merrill. 



136 football facts and figures 

Williams College. 

Respecting football in Williams College, I believe 
that, with all the evils that may be charged against 
this form of college athletics, the game is productive of 
more good than harm. Exclusive of bodily injuries, 
which constitute in my judgment the most serious 
objection to the game, the evils which result from foot- 
ball are in a large measure incidental, but of a kind 
that might be avoided with a gain to this sport in every 
way. 

Individual students undoubtedly suffer in scholarship 
from excessive devotion of time and thought to this 
game ; but it is most likely that such students would 
fail in scholarship for other reasons if this kind of 
athletics did not exist here. 

I am not disposed to think that the excitement from 
intercollegiate games is with us excessive or unwhole- 
some ; it may fairly be questioned whether the detrac- 
tion from college work which these games occasion is 
more serious than the inattention we should suffer from 
other causes in the absence of this more vigorous form 
of physical training. 

Regarding the moral aspects of football, about which 
so much has been said, my own observation has not led 
me to regard this game as necessarily brutalizing or 
unfavorable to the manliest type of character ; to be 
sure, a player who has not learned to keep the brute in 
him in subjection may be brutal under the provocations 
this game supplies ; but even sucli players learn sooner 
or later that intelligence and manly self-control are 
cardinal virtues in the good football player not less 
than elsewhere ; and for the greater number of students 
I believe football has proved a most excellent schooling 
in moral self-control and manly conduct. The only really 
serious objections to this form of college athletics I can 
see are the bodily injuries that constitute a liability as 



LETTERS FEOM MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY 137 

yet unpreventable. It may be possible, however, to 
eleminate very largely this element of peril by some 
modifications in methods of playing and more care in 
training ; if so, I should feel justified in saying let foot- 
ball remain with us, and do not enfeeble it by top severe 
restrictions about it, or by too radical changes in the 
game itself. 

John E. Russell. 

Yale University. 
In addition to the list of standings sent you you can 
put this down to the credit of football men, namely, 
that the average standing of the sixteen men who were 
members of the team last fall, and of those who were 
the substitutes (only academics, all regulars and subs), 
was above the average standing of the highest class 
graduated here. 

Yours, 

E. L. Richards. 

From Rev. C. C. Camp, Seabury Divinity School, Vale- 
dictorian Yale, 1877 

From articles that from time to time find their way 
into the public prints, it seems to me that there is in 
many minds an entire misconception of the causes of 
the injuries occasionally received by players in the game 
of football. It is sometimes said, and apparently often 
thought, that players are guilty of intentionally injuring 
their opponents. This I believe, from my own experi- 
ence and observation, is scarcely ever the case. It is true 
that in the excitement of the game contestants have 
been known to lose their tempers and strike out with 
their fists, but every captain of a team knows how the 
loss of self-control in such cases of temper injures the 
efficiency of his men, and therefore does his utmost, 
independently of the rules, to prevent such outbursts. 



138 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

The general influence of the game is doubtless to teach 
men courage, endurance, and self-control. 

There are very few forms of exercise that call into 
play so completely all the muscles of the body and 
mind. That which seems extreme roughness to those 
unaccustomed to vigorous exercise is often scarcely 
regarded by those whose muscles are hardened and 
toughened by constant use. Those who come together 
in the hardest collisions in the course of the game are 
often close friends when away from the football field. 

While deprecating the betting wliich is often con- 
nected with college athletics, it ought to be always re- 
membered that the tendency of the age and country, 
and not the legitimate sports of the young men in our 
universities, is responsible for this, and if base-ball, 
boating, and football were entirely suppressed, the 
betting in some form, probably worse, would still go on. 
We must not confound the mere occasion with the 
underlying cause. 

My observation, both before and since my graduation, 
has led me to think that college athletics have done 
much to promote the moral welfare of our great univer- 
sities. Forms of hazing and dissipation, formerly far 
too prevalent, have been greatly diminished or entirely 
abolished since the revival of athletic interest, which 
dates from about the time our colleges adopted the 
Rugby game in football. 

The increase of athletic clubs among our business 
men is also a healthy sign of the times ; and while no 
one would wish to commend all that is done under their 
auspices, we may well trust the day is far distant when 
college sports and amateur athletics shall be abolished. 
Very truly yours, 

Charles Clark Camp. 



CHAPTER IV 

LETTERS FROM CAPTAINS 

E. V. Baker, Captain Yale Team, 1876 

I played football for ten years, the last two years 
according to the modern Rugby rules, wliich I bad the 
pleasure of introducing at Yale. I was a member of 
the Yale University team during my entire college 
course and took part in more than twenty match games 
with Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, an English team 
from Eton, England, Canadian, and many other college 
teams, always playing forward except the last two 
years, when, as captain of the Yale team, I had to play 
back to better direct the game. 

I never suffered an injury of any kind except once. 
I sprained a toe, which prevented my playing in one 
game. With this one exception I never had to leave a 
game or give way to a substitute upon any occasion. I 
was always in perfect health and good physical condi- 
tion as the direct result of my football work, and to this 
development and training I attribute the good health 
that has been mine ever since leaving college, during 
years of close application to business in which I have 
found no time for phj-sical culture. During the first 
two years of Rugby football at Yale injuries of any 
kind were almost unknown. The same men played in 
every game throughout the season, a substitute never 
once being called in. I believe football offers the best 
opportunities of developing all the powers of the body, 
and of cultivating energy, courage, self-restraint, and 

139 



140 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

discipline of the mind, and with properly regulated 
rules should be entirely free from danger to health or 
person. 

W. A. Brooks, Jr. , Captain Harvard Team 

In regard to question 1. I do not remember that any 
man was compelled to leave the field in the game with 
Yale (fall of '86) on account of injury. I will look up 
this point more carefully later. 

Question 2. In regard to the physical results of the 
game in ray tirae — I think, jqs, am sure, that every man 
who played was greatly benefited. In my opinion there 
is no branch of sport which does a man more good, pro- 
vided that he is not worked to death, tlian football. 

Alexander Moffat, Captain Princeton Team 

In answer to your two queries I will say in regard to 
the first that in our game with Yale of that year, Wana- 
maker played the first half with rather a lame knee, and 
we didn't let him play the second half for fear that he 
might give out. He was the only man on our team who 
had to leave the field. In our Harvard game no one 
was hurt. 

The second query is more diflScult to answer as it 
depends upon what interpretation one puts upon the 
term "bad results." Physically, I know of no injuries 
which have caused serious inconvenience in after-life. 
Sometimes during the pursuance of the game boys have 
neglected their studies at college, but it is a query as to 
whether these same boys would not have neglected their 
studies under any circumstances, and, therefore, not 
fairly chargeable to football. 

The good results are both physical and mental. 

The physical good is patent to anyone. A boy can 
get good, violent, out-door exercise at a time of life when 



LETTERS FROM CAPTAINS 141 

a good, strong, healthy boy seeks and needs violent exer- 
cise to develop his muscles and strengthen his frame. 
His training is such that it is necessarj' for him to eat 
food at precisely regular hours, which builds up and 
strengthens the digestion. This was markedly proved 
by the case of ITolly on our team this year. There was 
a man who had been under a doctor's advisement for two 
years with a chronic stomach trouble, so severe that he 
was unable to play last j'ear. This year, b}^ careful 
watching and dieting and training, his condition so 
improved that he played through every one of the 
important games with no inconvenience, and at the end 
of the season confessed to me that he had not felt so 
well in over two years. 

I could remember man}^ cases in which a boy's physi- 
cal condition has been greatly improved by playing the 
game, as it is played at the larger universities. It is the 
fact that every boy who plays regularly and for any 
length of time is benefited. 

Mentally, the game benefits a j^oung man by teaching 
him self-control in various way. He must learn to keep 
his temper, to control an}'^ propensity he may have for 
indulging in luxuries or dissipation of an}'^ kind. He 
must be able to submit himself to the severe discipline 
which the captain puts him under, and do so without a 
murmur. He must learn how to so train his mind as to 
make himself a part of a unified team working for the 
attainment of the one object. 

J. H. Sears, Captain Harvard Team 

The year of my captaincy was 1888. That year we 
had no game with Yale. The Princeton game, played 
on Princeton's grounds, resulted in no injury sufficient 
to require any member of my team to leave the field. 
One man, Frank Woodman, was exhausted at the end 



y 



142 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGUEES 

of the first half, but played through the rest of the game 
at the orders of the umpire. Victor Harding was 
slightly injured just before the close of the game, but 
recovered within a day or two afterward. 

It seems to me impossible to overstate the good results 
of the game during my year. "The college was tlien just 
beginning to be extremely enthusiastic over football. 
Football men held the highest position in'the respect of 
their classmates. They were setting a standard which 
has increased in efficacy since then for the other under- 
graduates of the university; a standard of temperance, 
self-control, attention to work, and manliness. So far as 
I have been able to follow the men who were on that 
team, they are now — all of them that are living — stand- 
ing well in the communities in which they live, and 
promise to be successful men. While in college, if I 
remember rightly, every man but one stood considerably 
above the middle of his class. 

I can honestly say that I do not know of any bad 
results from those two months of football. I wish I 
could say the same for the other months of the college 
year while I was at the university. 

H. W. Cowan, Captain Princeton Team 

In regard to that first question : In the year 1887 with 
Harvard none left the field from injury, and with Yale 
the same year one of the Princeton boys was exhausted 
so that his brother took his place, No particular injury : 
he had not fully recovered from the game with Harvard 
the week before. In 1888 no one was injured in either 
game. 

The second question it is harder to answer. In regard 
to the playing of the game, I did not think that it could 
be called a dangerous game. My own experience of five 
years of playing in nearly every game from the very 



LETTEES FKOM CAPTAINS 143 

first to the end of the season, I nevei- left the field on 
account of injury. In fact, I was injured more by play- 
ing tennis, as 1 sprained my ankle playing tennis after 
having played the whole season at football. I am of the 
opinion, however, that it would be well, as the game has 
developed and the turn it has taken, to do a little legis- 
lating in regard to the flying wedge. I was not an eye- 
witness to the game when it was played, so perhaps am 
not competent to judge. I simply can see how such 
a kind of game would make the play much more 
dangerous. 

Ray Tompkins, Captain Yale Team 

As to your two questions, I would answer the first by 
saying that in the two years that I was captain no 
member of our team was compelled to leave the game 
during the match with Princeton or Harvard. The 
second question could be answered at greater length 
than I have time to spare. I should, in a general wa^^, 
sa}'^ that there are very, very few permanent injuries 
received from plajdng the game. I presume no more 
than happens in any other vigorous out-door sport. The 
good results that are brought about are altogether too 
numerous to be mentioned by me during the remainder 
of my life. Outside of the physical improvement to be 
derived, I should like to pay more attention to the great 
improvement one's mind derives from the game. AVe 
know very well that we have seen men physically 
quickened to such a degree as to be visibly perceptible. 
If you have a machine down there for measuring the 
quickness of mental perception, I will guarantee to take 
any set of men picked out by any professor, and I will, 
with the game of football, show greater improvement 
in the above direction than he can by any mental 
process that he is able to contrive. Discipline and 



144 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

courage are certainly the most desirable things to be 
taught any young man in this country. We know 
that we can take any of our well-trained football men, 
and order them to do anything on earth, and they will 
do it, without thinking twice, to the best of their 
ability. A great many games are played by people 
who become expert simply because it is their desire 
to do so. I would venture to say that a large propor- 
tion of football players are trained and do their best out 
of a sense of duty, and as the result of a high course of 
discipline. The number of men in the college who 
derive exercise mentally and physically from this game 
are a great many more than from any other of our 
sports. 

Albert F. Holden, Captain Harvard Team 

Question No. 1. In the Harvard -Princeton game in 
1887 there were two players hurt badly enough to cause 
their removal from the field. Price, half-back of the 
Princeton team, was badly cut about the mouth, and 
liad his nose bruised. He claimed he was weaJcfrom the 
loss of blood, and was taken from the field. On our side 
I was the only one hurt. I had my sternum bone 
fractured while tackling Price. I was laid up for a 
year or so. 

In the Harvard- Yale game in 1887, no one was hurt 
on either side except Wallace of Yale, who sprained his 
ankle. Sears of Harvard left the field, but not from 
injuries received in the game. 

Answering Question No. 2. I am a thorough believer 
in football as it was played in my time and down to 
1891. Since then I have more or less lost track of the 
game. I believe it teaches cool action in a crisis and 
concentration of purpose, both of which, even in my 
short business career, I have found to be valuable traits 



LETTERS FROM CAPTAINS 145 

in practical life. All this is perhaps dictum in answer- 
ing your question. Practically, and by practically I 
mean from a player's and spectator's point of view, I 
consider our old game fully satisfactory. I consider 
the introduction of the mass plays a backward step and 
one that was never contemplated by the framers of the 
rules. 

P. Taylor Bryan, Captain Princeton Team 

No. 1. During the time in which I was captain of the 
Princeton football team, I do not recollect that the 
injuries received by the men in the match games with 
Harvard and Yale were serious enough to cause them to 
leave the field for more than a short time. In other 
words, my recollection is that the team which began to 
play in each of those games continued to play througli- 
out that game, and that no substitutes were used except 
for a sliort time during the game. 

I do not recollect tlie nature of the injuries received 
by any of the players. 

No. 2. In my opinion, the game of football as it 
was pla^'ed in my time led generally, and almost with- 
out exception, as far as I can recollect, to good results. 
Men were injured in pi-actice games it is true, and also 
in some of the match games, but the injuries were, with 
few exceptions, not of a nature at all serious. 

I think the game, as it was played in my time, had a 
tendency to make a man physically strong and active. 
It had also a tendenc}' to develop him mentally, by teach- 
ing him to be cool and collected xinder circumstances 
which would ordinarily have tended to excite him. 
And if I may express an opinion, I would say that such 
is the natural tendency of the game. If it has had 
other tendencies in particular instances or in particular 
seasons, it would seem to me that it must have been the 
10 



146 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

result either of accident or of innovations in the rules or 
method of playing the game. 

I may also add, that while I have no doubt that the 
game could be improved upon, I regret to see the 
tendency in some quarters to abolish the playing of the 
game altogether ; • I think that such action would be 
unwarranted by any results likely to be obtained. 

Marcus M. Kimball, Captain Harvard Team 

During the two years that I played at Harvard, I do 
not remember any accidents of a serious nature which 
occurred in match games with the exception of the 
Princeton-Harvard game in fall of '83. In this game a 
large number of Harvard men were laid up ; but it was 
almost entirely due to the slippery condition of the 
ground. During the several years that I played the 
game, the only injury of any account which I received 
was the knocking out of two teeth. As a game I do not 
think there is anything to compare with football for 
development of physique, courage, quickness of judg- 
ment, and endurance. And I should be more than sorry 
to see it stopped. At the same time, as a spectator 
only, I should be glad to see the game opened out by 
any means possible, and a ^oppage, or at least a lessen- 
ing, of the present style of mass play ; and I do not see 
why there cannot be just as much team work in an open 
game with less danger of serious accident and a large 
increase of interest to the spectator. It has always 
been my opinion that the root of the evil was not to be 
found in the rules of football ; but in the knowledge (or 
rather lack of knowledge) of the spectators, and the 
spirit of applauding any play that is successful. Any- 
thing, therefore, that will really interest the public and 
teach them to really understand the game is to me the 
thing to be desired. 



LETTERS FROM CAPTAINS 147 

Ralph H. Warren, Captain Princeton Team 

In reply to question 1, would say that in our game 
with Yale in '91 we had the same team tlirougliout the 
match. That year we did not play Harvard. 

Concerning bad and good results of the game of that 
fall — from the effects of the football season on the men 
that I had to handle — should say that pliysically they 
were much benefited by the plaj'- and the training. 
The training of that year and previous ones at Prince- 
toi), however, was radically different from the system in 
operation now. It was more on the " beef and one glass 
of water a meal " plan, and playing the best men through- 
out season, every game, without rest. This was partly 
due, however, to the lack of sufficient number of good 
candidates to divide work. With the exception of the 
captain, who suffered from over-training and the mental 
strain after the fall's Avodty'I think no member of the 
team suffered anything but trifling injuries during entire 
season. During my last year at football, a man of ordi- 
nary intelligence had an abundance of time, if he were 
taking an undergraduate course, to play on the team 
and yet stand high in his class. I hope, when the 
college representatives meet to consider changes in 
this year's rules, that besides doing away with flying in- 
terference they will consider the advantages of the 
English game of open running and passing as com- 
pared to those of our American interference. 

T. L. McClung, Captain Yale Team 

Regarding question number 1, I would say that 
during my captainc}^ of the Yale team, fall 1891 — there 
was not a single player who left tlie field from injuiy or 
any other reason, in either the Harvard or Princeton 
games. The same is true of the Harvard team and 



148 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

also of the Princeton eleven. In other words, twenty, 
two men, and twenty-two alone, participated in the 
Yale-Harvard game, and also in the Yale-Princeton 
contest. 

To question number 2, 1 reply that in ray time the 
good results so far outnumbered the bad that the latter 
were hardly worth considering. I think I can say that 
the one drawback to our fall college game is the amount 
of time which every player must devote to it to the 
exclusion of nearly everything else while the season is 
on ; but that applies in a measure, too, to the other 
sports. 

I take for granted that the men who go into the 
game are physically able to stand a cei'tain amount of 
rough, healthy playing. There is little danger of injury 
if the men, by constant training, gradually bring them- 
selves to the point of " perfect condition," 

The accidents which do happen almost invariably 
occur to careless young fellows who have had little 
experience with the game and its requirements. I 
refer, of course, to serious accidents. 

Wm. Herbert Corbin, Captain Yale Team 

No. 1. During my captaincy no member of the 
eleven was compelled to leave the field during the 
match with Princeton on account of injuries received. 
The game with Harvard was forfeited to Yale. 

No. 2. In my opinion the football season of 1888 
was marked by the greatest development of the game 
under the rules then existing. The present methods of 
interference had not come into general use. The play 
was more open tlian at present, and the dangers accom- 
panying the present style of interference and "mass 
plays " were absent. The good results were far in 
excess of the bad. 



LETTERS FROM CAPTAINS 149 

H. W. Beecher, Captain Yale Team 

No. 1, Fall of '87 — Princeton vs. Yale. No one hurt. 

Harvard vs. Yale, Woodruff injured his knee (sprain). 
Wallace strained muscles of his calf. 

No. 2. The majority of injuries my year were sprains 
or strains, and I remember no more serious accident. 
The most of these were received in the early part of 
the season before the men had become hardened in 
muscles and supple in joints. It is such a hard game to 
moderate that the excitement of the moment drives men 
to play beyond the limit warranted by their condition 
in the early season, and injuries received then generally 
last and are a bother in the final games. 

Eugene L. Richards, Jr., Captain Yale Team 

In reference to the other enquiries made by you, as 
captain in 1884 I would say that the only player 
injured in a big game was myself. I had my ankle 
dislocated in the Yale-Princeton game on Thanksgiving 
Day, 1884, and was laid up for about six weeks. I have 
never had any trouble from it since. 

As to the advantage of the game, I do not think I 
can express myself as well as you can, but my own 
opinion of the game is that it is the best test and culti- 
vator of courage, judgment, perseverance, and physical 
and intellectual quickness that exists. 

T. G. Trenchard, Captain Princeton Team 

In the Yale game, Balliet had his head cut a^ little, 
and Lea had a knock on his backbone which laid them 
both up for a short time, and tliat is the extent of our 
injuries. The only thing I have against football is 
that the men who have recitations after practice are apt 



150 FOOTBALL FACTS AKD FIGURES 

to cut them because they would rather lie down, being 
a little tired. 

Everything else favors the game. A man's health is 
improved, he becomes more manly, it teaches him to 
think and act quickly, to take advantage of every 
opportunity. 

Robert N. Corwin, Captain Yale Team, and also for 
Captain Peters* 

We did not play Harvard in the fall of '85, under 
the captaincy of Frank Peters. In the Princeton game 
of that year none of our men were injui'ed as far as I 
remember, or as far as the newspapers, which are careful 
to record such matters, show. 

Tracy H. Harris, for DeCamp, Captain Princeton Team 

I do not remember any one being injured or com- 
pelled to retire from the field in the Yale game played 
in fall of '85. Princeton and Harvard did not play that 
year. 

As to the second question I would say the results 
physically were good. As far as I know no one of the 
players of that time has attributed any illness or weak- 
ness to injuries or strains received in playing. 

On the contrary, I believe after ten years of accumu- 
lation of fat every one wishes he might again experi- 
ence the sensation of a perfect physical condition. 
Increased avoirdupois is the only bad result I know. 

There is no question but that the training, both 
mental and physical, was of much value. 

I regret the question has arisen that the game needs 
vindication. It can only arise with those who do not 
know it pi'actically. I am confident that every old 

* Frank G. Peters, Captain Yale team, died of typhoid fever 
seven years after graduation. 



LETTERS FROM CAPTAINS 151 

player, almost without exception, is ready to maintain 
that it is, of all the athletic sports, the most vigorous, 
manly, and beneficial. 

Philip King, Captain Princeton Team 

In the Yale-Princeton game of '92, which year I 
was captain, not a Princeton man, either through injury 
or any other cause, was compelled to leave the field. 
Of the Yale team L, Bliss, wlio entered the game with 
an injured knee, was compelled to retire ten minutes 
before the close of the game. 

In the last ten years at Princeton two men have had 
their legs broken, which have been the most serious 
accidents during tliat time. 

Personally, the game has done me untold good. I 
have developed myself, have learned self-restraint, it 
has helped me when and bow to act in a crisis, has 
given me entire self-possession, and I think better fitted 
me to take up the battle of life. 

Robert N. Corwin, Captain Yale Team 

If my memory serves me rightly, we had no occasion 
to make use of a substitute during eitlierof the games of 
my captaincy. Certainly no injury was received by any 
of the men of a serious enough character to have lodged 
in my memory ; and if I were asked to select men who 
represented Yale physically, I am sure I should not be 
able to do better than select the men who played with 
me, senior year. 

Of course, we all knoAV that the game is not entirely 
devoid of danger, but I believe that this can be almost 
entirely eliminated ; and I believe that the first step in 
this direction is, if possible, to put a stop to this bat- 
tering-ram work, whicli is not only dangerous but mo- 
notonous, and to return to something of the game as 



152 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

played a half dozen years ago. In ray time most of the 
serious accidents which came to ray notice happened to 
men who never should have gone on football fields. 
Of the latest phases of the game I can only judge from 
the newspaper reports, and it would seem as if the 
various wedges and rams were developing the rougher 
possibilities in football, and adding little or nothing to 
the better sides of the game. 

C O. Gill, Captain Yale Team 

In answer to your first question I would say that 
in neither the Harvard nor Princeton games in 1889 did 
any Yale player receive an injury so serious as to cause 
him to leave the field. 

Two players attempted to play in the Princeton game, 
one at the beginning and the other later, in the place of 
a disqualified player, and on account of previous injuries 
found it impossible to play well enough to remain in 
the field. They were not, however, injured during the 
game. 

As to bad results of the game, I can think of no 
serious injury received by any of the players while I 
was in college. Interference with studies was only 
necessary in the case of the captain. In his case I think 
the experience gained in managing the team more than 
compensated for the temporary interference with the 
college curriculum. 

As to the good results, I believe the discipline of the 
careful training and hard work was of the greatest 
benefit to the players. 

Intercollegiate athletics, contrary to the claims of 
recent newspaper articles, tend to stimulate general 
exercise throughout the college, not merely in scrub 
games, but in walking and running out-doors, and work 
in the gymnasium, kicking football, and passing foot- 



LETTERS FROM CAPTAINS 153 

ball, base-ball, and tennis-ball, and in any other form of 
out-door exercise. The general habit of exercise is 
mainly due to the intercollegiate contests and the 
example of the teams training for them. In this way 
the games are indirectly of the greatest benefit to the 
general health of the men in college. 

It is my impression that now more time is spent in 
preparation for the final games than formerly, and that 
the mass play makes the game somewhat more violent, 
but at the time I was in college the objections against 
football commonly urged had little ground. 

I know of no player whose health was injured by the 
game. I liave enjoyed the best of health ever since 
graduation, and am of the opinion that the exercise in 
the autumn air strengthens one's constitution and has 
no injurious effect. 

W. C. Rhodes, Captain Yale Team 

In answer to question No. 1, would say that H. W. 
Williams was the only man on my team to leave the 
field during the Harvard game ; his injury -was only a 
sliglit strain in his shoulder. In the Princeton game 
P. W. Harvey was the only one to leave the game ; his 
injury consisted of a sprained ankle, but did not amount 
to much, as he was able to walk without assistance of 
any kind. Question No. 2. The results of the game in 
my time. There is but one answer to this question, and 
that is, they were, in every case of the thirty men play- 
ing, good. 

Vance McCormick, Captain Yale Team 

The first question is easily answered, as Laurie Bliss 
was the only man laid off in the Harvard and Princeton 
games, and he in the last five minutes of the game, 



154 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

caused by his knee — which he injured while fooling on 
the lawn at Newport — playing out. 

Looking at the game from a Yale man's point of view, 
or rather looking at the whole season, I was terribly 
impressed with a tired feeling when, after having beaten 
Pennsylvania and Harvard, we still had a hard fight 
between us and the championship. The game as played 
in our year, when wedges were resorted to principally, 
was rather uninteresting to the ordinary spectator. And 
to the player having a good team working gradually 
down on him yard by yard, with no prospects of keeping 
them from gaining their distance, is rather disheartening, 
and uses a man up more completely than anything else. 

Bertram, Gordon Waters, Captain Harvard Team 

During the Yale game of 1893 only one man, myself, 
was obliged to leave the field. The cause was the giv- 
ing out of a previously weak knee that had so troubled 
me that I had grave doubts of getting through the game 
before going into it. The knee is now entirely well. 
As you know, of course, we did not play Princeton. 

I think that the good results of the game far outweigh 
the few and minor bad results that we see quoted among 
the great mass of stuflF printed in the newspapers against 
the game. 

In giving to a man determination, self-reliance, and 
the training of good discipline, I think the game cannot 
be equalled, and giving, as it does, out-door exercise to 
so many in the fall I think all who have played the 
game will agree with me that its advantages are far 
greater than its dangers. 

Speaking personally, if my own experience is of any 
use to you, I may say that I feel that my work on foot- 
ball has benefited me greatly, and some of the time 
thus spent to have been as valuably spent as any other 
during my college course. 



LETTERS FROM CAPTAINS 155 

Edivard C. Peace, Captain Princeton Team 

During the period Avhicli I was captain of the Prince- 
ton football team in the year 1882, 1 have no recollection 
of any accident which caused any member of the 
Princeton team to leave the field in any game between 
Princeton and Yale or Princeton and Harvard. I would 
like to add, I played football for four years, between 
1875 and 1879, at St. Paul's school ; during that time I 
never saw an accident that resulted in a broken bone. 
I entered Princeton in the fall of 1879, Was a 
member of the team as the onlj'' member of the fresh- 
man class of '83, and played for four years on the team 
representing Princeton University. In those four years 
the worst injury I ever saw was a broken collar-bone. 
In the game played at the Polo Grounds in the fall 
of 1880, Princeton vs. Harvard, when Winton P., '84, 
kicked a goal in about the last ten minutes, I was 
tripped (entirely unintentionally by Perrin of Harvard, 
Cincinnati). I think you refereed the game, I was off 
the field for five minutes in the last seven minutes of the 
first half. 

Any remarks I can make or anything I can say to 
advance the interest of the colleges in American foot- 
ball I will gladly, as I always have tried to. Knowing, 
as I alwaj's have, your deep interest in the game, and 
your true spirit to keep the game purely amateur, if I 
can do the game anything to help it along, you can 
always call on me, for no one ever loved it more, 

H. A. MacJcey, Captain University of Pennsylvania Team 

In our game with Princeton last season, Mr. Gelbert, 
a half-back, was the only man who was compelled to 
leave the field, he sustaining a slightly sprained ankle, 
which was entirely well in three weeks' time, and he is 
now playing base-ball. 



156 FOOTBALL PACTS AND FIGURES 

In our game with Yale Mr, Newton, playing end-rush, 
left the field after the game was about two-thirds over, 
on account of a weak ankle, naturally weak, and becom- 
ing painful through weariness. 

As to my opinion on the good and bad results of the 
game, I would say that I have always looked upon a 
game of football as a great training-school for the mind, 
and have always thought that upon the gridiron could 
be learned lessons better calculated to help a man in 
after life than in any class-room of any college. A man 
by his football training learns to look ahead of him to 
some great object he wishes to accomplish, and then, 
sacrificing every personal pleasure if it be necessary, he 
summons every power of his body and his mind to 
accomplish that object. When a football man goes 
upon the field of play in one of the important matches 
of the present day, he carries with him the accumulated 
energy of months of training and study. He knows 
that he carries with him the honor of his college. He 
knows that he is about to wage a battle that will be 
talked and written about for years to come. He meets 
a thousand different complications upon that field, and 
it is the team that has the greatest amount of mental 
activity, other things being equal, that is going to carry 
off the honors of the day. The venerable Dr. McCosh, 
in addressing a body of Princeton students at one time, 
said, " Gentlemen, yon learn more by your defeats than 
by your victories," and in this thought I find one of the 
greatest arguments in favor of college football in that 
when a college football player goes out into the world 
to battle with the stern realities of life, if he be true to 
the instincts of his college training he will not be de- 
jected or discouraged by any misfortune that he may 
meet with, but, true to his early instructions upon the 
gridiron, he will look hopefully to the future, expecting 
better results from better work. 



LETTERS FROM CAPTAINS 157 

C. H. Schoff, Captain University of Pennsylvania Team. 

In our game with Princeton while I was captain, two 
men were compelled to leave the field, I being one of 
the number, and my injury was re-hurting a knee which 
had been in the first place injured by playing base-ball 
and thereby made weak and easily hurt. The other 
player, Mr. Knipe, also having a bad knee, the result of 
an accident entirely foreign to the game. 

In the game with Yale, three players retired at the 
end of the first half, through slight disabilities in 
nowise permanent, the same players being to-day per- 
fectly sound. As to the good or bad results from the 
game, I am perhaps not an impartial judge, but I cannot 
see any harm coming from a game where such traits of 
character as prudence, self-sacrifice and total abstinence, 
pluck and intellect are employed so largely, and where 
medical authorities tell us that the injuries occasionally 
received are very small as compared with the g.'^it 
advantages thereby derived. 

Edgar M. Church, Captain University of Pennsylvania ' 
Team 

As to injuries received by players while I was captain, 
I only remember one, that of Mr. Poe of Princeton, who 
was forced to leave the field on account of a broken 
nose received from butting into the hips of one of his 
own players. This injury was received through care- 
lessness on his part and not on account of the roughness 
of any set system of playing. 

Mr. Thayer was once forced to leave the field on 
account of the intentional hitting by one of his oppo- 
nents. This injury was received in an open field and 
while he was endeavoring to punt the ball. 

I can see no bad results from the game of football as 
played at present, and never remember having heard or 



158 ' FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

seen of a man who was properly trained receiving any 
injuries necessitating bis laying off for more than a 
week or so. 

It seems to me this cry (injury) is worked about to 
a standstill. It is done for sympathy's sake, and the 
papers use it as a means of tales which toady to the 
minds of a good many of their readers. 

E. Miel, Captain University of Pennsylvania Team 

I cannot recall any serious injury to any member of 
the University of Pennsylvania team in the games with 
Harvard, Yale, or Princeton. When any player was 
laid off the cause generally was the renewal of an old 
hurt or sprain received perhaps years before. 

In reply to question 2 : 

a. Bad results. At that time interference was being 
largely developed. A tendency to hold on the line, and 
in consequence blows and bad blood. Just here was 
the spot where the ugliest playing was done. 

h. Good results : Interference brought about a better 
protection for half-backs and runners. Less liability to 
injury by not being thrown so heavily. 

My experience has led me to favor the game as 
a splendid exercise for muscle, intelligence, and grit. 

Thomas W. Hulme, Captain University of Pennsylvania 
Team 

1. I do not recall any cases during the period that I 
captained the university team where any of our men 
were seriously injured in games with Harvard, Yale, or 
Princeton. We often found it necessary to call in 
substitutes, but our facilities at that time for properly 
training the candidates for the football team did not 
compare favorably with those of other prominent teams, 
and to this extent our men labored at a disadvantage. 



LETTERS FROM CAPTAINS 159 

resulting at times, in their games with teams who liad 
the advantage of superior training, in some of our men 
being compelled to leave the field from physical ex- 
haustion. 

2. An opinion must be largely based upon personal 
experiences, so in answering your second question I can 
say that I believe my football training has been of great 
assistance and value to me in business and private life. 
It is in my opinion the game best suited to teach a man 
the advantage of full control of himself under exciting 
and trying conditions, conditions which at times might 
readily offer an excuse for the indulgence of passion, 
the exercise of which would lessen his usefulness to his 
companions and saddle him with contempt. It compels 
prompt action upon new situations constantly arising in 
the course of a game, which can only be of inestimable 
benefit to the man. 

Tlie physical benefits resulting to a man who plays the 
game, and who has trained faithfully, must not be under- 
estimated. I believe that the little time thus lost from his 
studies is more than compensated for during the balance 
of the college year, and in after life by the good health 
which a strong constitution thus built up insures. 



CHAPTEK V 

LETTERS FKOM PLATBES * 

One cannot help being impressed with the unanimity 
of opinion among the players that the game has been 
of benefit to them. The following letters come from 
men, some of whom have wandered far indeed from 
their alma mater, but almost every one has a good 
word to say of his old sport. 

Chittooe, India, April 26, 1894. 

In the interest of this fine game I am moved to add 
my experience : 

I played football throughout my college course at 
Rutgers (1878-1882) and part of my theological semi- 
nary course (1882-1886). For four of those years I was 
regularly on the 'varsity team and captain in 1882, in 
the year, I think, in which Rutgers scored the touch- 
down against Yale — the first, I think — and when you 
arrived later in the game at New Brunswick and we first 
discovered your presence by a drop kick for a goal from 
the field ! But this is reminscence. 

I have been in India for six years and my bicycle has 
carried me far and near, by day and b}'^ night, and I 
have no doubt that much of my endurance is attributable 

* I wish to thank the many old players who took the pains to 
write and who made such capital suggestions for the game. All 
their suggestions were with pleasure submitted by me to the 
Rules Committee, and I should print them here did not the hard- 
hearted publishers insist that I keep this book within a prescribed 
limit. — Walter Camp. 

160 



LETTERS FKOM PLAYERS 161 

to my football experience. In our mission there are 
three old football players, and I fancy no one will ques- 
tion our claim to the greatest endurance and general good 
health and strength. Very sincerely, 

(Rev.) W. I. Chamberlain, 

Rutgers, 1882. 

New York, March 17, 1894. 

The game as played to-day is much too rough, and its 
excessive roughness first crept into the game when the 
original rule for " off side " play was changed. When 
the game was first introduced in this country (in the 
fall of '74) a player Avas "off side," and therefore out of 
the game, when the ball had been caught or touched, or 
was being run witli, by any of his own side behind him. 

A player was put " on side " when the ball had been 
caught or touched by any player on the opposite side or 
when the player on his own side, Avho caught the ball, 
had run past him. 

When " off side " a player was considered out of the 
game. He could not touch the ball in any case what- 
ever, except only when " in touch," or in any way inter- 
rupt a play or obstruct a player. 

The most important rule of the whole list, in my 
opinion, is this one defining " off side " play. The whole 
idea of the Rugby game centers on this point, that to be 
" on side " a player must be behind the ball. 

Return to the original rule, as defined above, and you 
must necessarily cut out much of the roughness of the 
present game, for the so-called " modern interference " 
would not be allowed, and it is this " off side " interfer- 
ence (" off side " being used in its original sense) that has 
made the game seem brutal. 

I believe in the more open game, where passing, dodg- 
ing, and drop-kicking for goal were the beautiful 
features of the game. 
11 



162 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

There is one other change I would advise : I believe 
the ball should be put in play by a " kick off." 
Very truly yours, 

H. S. Seaman. 

Boston, Mass., March 20, 1894, 
I so heartily endorse your efforts iov facts about foot- 
ball that I write a line to you personally. 

You will remember that E. T. Cabot, '83, was the cap- 
tain of our team of the fall of 1882. He, poor fellow, 
died a few months ago, of a chronic ti'ouble in no way 
connected with athletics. I only wish he could answer 
in person your enquiries. I believe ray friend Arthur 
Lymon has given you a short account of his experience. 
I played with him for years and it was he and Tom 
Thacher and myself who seemed to thrive most under 
rough handling, and Cabot, I believe, never was absent 
from a game in college, and he played for many years 
in school with no injury. 

With regard to the games under his captaincy : In 
the Princeton-Harvard game there was no one hurt, the 
eleven men playing through. In the Yale-Harvard 
game Wesselhof t, '84, had his ankle badly sprained, and 
Adams took his place. His was the only injury in the 
two games. This was in the fall of 1882. 
Yours very truly, 

Geo. B. Mokison. 

Chicago, March 10, 1894. 

You will find enclosed the printed questions duly 
answered. 

If you read the enclosed sketch of my injury you will 
know why I have answered questions Nos. 5 and 6 as 
I have. 

I have cheerfully taken the time and trouble necessary 
to write it, in order that you might have the evidence 



LETTERS FROM PLAYERS 163 

necessary to clear of all blame the game we both enjoy 
playing so much. 

I care for football as I care for no other game. Some 
of my happiest hours have been spent in the exhilar- 
ation of a well-contested field. And although I have 
been thi'own often and have contributed to the over- 
throw of some, no one ever hurt me nor did I ever 
injure anyone (except myself, by twisting my knee). 
Sincerely, 

Wm. W. K. Nixon. 

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, June 7, 1894. 

The printed questions I have answered and enclosed. 
You ask besides for an expression of opinion from me 
as to the game of football. I think it one of the grand- 
est games ever played for those who can play it without 
too much effort and without too much fatigue. A man 
should be "adapted " to it, that is, take to it naturally 
for the love of the game and not for the kudos he 
may win. 

I have watched with interest your close connection 
with the game since I left New Haven, as also j'^our 
efforts to effect such improvement as the condition of 
the game suggested. For ten years I have been out of 
touch with the Rugby game or any modification of it. 
The game played here, and watched by upward of fifty 
thousand people every Saturday for five months in the 
year, is as near as can be the game played at Yale when 
big Fulton was captain and the following year — of 
course you remember it. Certain imimportant modifi- 
cations have been made with a view of making it a fast 
game. At present I consider it a finer game, from a spec- 
tator's point of view, than the Rugby game played at 
Yale in 1879 and 1880. But all this ia outside the matter 
on which you asked for information. 

I sympathize with you in your efforts to free the 



164 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

game from any objectional features as well as from 
false prejudice in the eyes of the public. 

If you would like any further information as to the 
game played in this part of the world do not hesitate to 
write, for it will afford me great pleasure to reply. 
Yours, most sincerely, 

Rudolf Wuets. 

Tokyo, Japan, April 19, 1894. 

I of course do not agree with the opinion that foot- 
ball should be prohibited in the schools and colleges. 
There is quite too much good in it to justify the current 
wholesale denunciation on the score of dangers involved. 
At the same time I should be glad to see changes made 
in the rules that would prevent, or at least limit, mass 
plays and other rougher features of the game. 

I certainly hope that the enemies of the game will not 
win ; but that changes may be agreed upon such as shall 
satisfy the public that American Rugby is really what 
it claims to be — a manly exercise and discipline, and 
rather a safeguard against than a cultivator of ruflSan- 
ism in American student life. 

I am, yours very truly, 

Theodore M. Mac Nair. 

Boston, March 12, 1894. 

Your circular letter with enclosed questions was re- 
ceived to-day, and I will of course do all in my power 
to help you in collecting data. 

My injury was received in the middle of November, 
and kept me away from college until the following 
April, and out of all athletics during the college year. 

Football, in my mind, is without doubt the best game 
we have for physical and mental training ; but at the 
same time I must confess that the above accident cooled 
my ardor for the game personally, and all the more, as 



LETTERS FROM PLATERS 165 

you will appreciate, as it prevented ray playing on the 
only base-ball nine that was able to win its series against 
Yale during my college course. If I can help you in any 
Avay I will gladly do so. Yours very truly, 

Walter D. Phillips. 

New York, May 14, 1894. 
It is with a great deal of pleasure that I add ray 
testinion}^ to the good of football. I believe in it 
most thoroughly as a man and as a physician, provided 
of course the player is well and strong, " in condition," 
and has no organic trouble. Alraost all the injuries, 
certainly all the serious ones, that have corae under my 
notice, have been primarily due to lack of condition. In 
my own case I cannot speak too strongly in favor of the 
game. It gave me the strength to combat successfully 
a severe sickness with threatened loss of ray eyesight. 
I have always talked in favor of the game to fathers and 
mothers who had boys to send to college. Its general 
influence is good. It is, above all others, the gentleman's 
game. I remain, very sincerely, 

Wm. Homes Tatler, M. D. 

Philadelphia, March 31, 1894. 
I consider, from a physical standpoint, that I have 
very much to be thankful for for the benefits received 
through training for and playing football. 

I knew little or nothing about the garae until my 
freshman year in college, and, by accident, one day 
found myself in the midst of a "scrub," from which 
time I continued to take an active interest in the game 
and it proved to be of great and lasting benefit to me. 
I always feel thoroughly enthused over the garae and 
believe it will always be esteemed a most manly sport. 
Yours very truly, 

Rodman Wanamaker, 



166 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

Boston, April 7, 1894. 

I have never received serious injury in playing foot- 
ball. I have had innumerable little hurts that were 
disagreeable at the time, but I regard such injuries as 
really a precious part of the training in teaching forti- 
tude to bear any other hardships. An injury to my 
nose left it slightly out of shape, but just as good for 
all practical purposes. 

After I was taken from the field at Springfield in the 
Yale game a year ago last fall, I was unconscious for ten 
or fifteen minutes, but I never knew why I was so, and 
I was all right as soon as I came to my senses. I think 
I may fairly say that my injuries sustained in football 
have not been severe enough to deserve any notice. 

Very sincerely, 

J. D. Upton. 

Philadelphia, April 19, 1894. 

With regard to question No. 2, perhaps I should 
have said that while playing at school I injured my 
wrist, and not having afterward taken any care of it, 
nature took care of it, but in such a way that the bone 
or ligament, or whatever it was that was injured, 
knitted wrong, and I have since been unable to bend my 
hand back at all and when boxing it has often troubled 
me, hurting me considerably. 

This injury, I may say, was permanent I suppose. 

You may remember another injury which I received, 
and which may or rnay not enter into the subject. 
I refer to the season of 1891, and the University 
of Pennsylvania-Princeton game. I was struck from 
behind, after playing about fifteen minutes, by one 
of the Princeton men, the blow being right on my 
temple. I had had a very severe and heavy cold, 
from which I was suffering at the time, and played 
against the advice of mv doctor. The blow and this 



LETTERS FROM PLAYERS 167 

condition I was in " put me out of the game," as I did 
not know where I was for fully five minutes. 

The blow was one with the fist and not accidental in 
any way, therefore cannot be traced to the roughness 
of football. Yours very truly, 

Harry C. Thayer. 

Germantown, April 22, 1894. 

I think the general effect of the sport is very bene- 
ficial. I think no one will dispute its physically beneficial 
results. The general belief is that football brings out 
all that is brutal in a man. I dispute this, however, and 
think on the contrary that it represses these instincts. 
During the season a man must be physically moral, even 
if he is not morally moral. After the first weeks of drudg- 
ery in getting the summer's fat off, if one have anj-^ (I 
never had), the clear eye and the satin skin are sure tokens 
of a man who is at peace with the world and with him- 
self, lie is very liable to want to remain in that con- 
dition. I keep in half training all the time. By half 
training I mean getting as much exercise as possible, but 
not necessarily keeping early hours or denying myself 
pastr3^ I never had a taste for liquor or tobacco. 

I can study much better, concentrate my mind and 
attain much better results when I have plenty of exercise. 

Football is a splendid training for a man. It teaches 
him obedience to orders, prompt decision in plays and 
under circumstances that arise unexpectedly against 
which it is impossible to provide. The powers of obser- 
vation are sharpened. 

Very truly yours, 

Louis de P. Vail. 

Philadelphia, April 20, 1894. 
I consider football one of the grandest games that is 
played. My experience on the football field has stood 



168 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

me in good stead and has taught me self-possession and 
the faculty of deciding quickly and accurately. I 
believe that in many ways it fits a man for the business 
of life when he comes in contact with his fellow-men. 

I have been out of college for nine years, but I 
endeavor, at every opportunity to see a good game of 
football. 

Yours very truly, 

W. S. Habvey. 

Boston, Mass., May 1, 1894. 

George Morison turned over to me your enquiries to 
Billy Manning, and I will answer for him, for Ted 
Cabot and I were, I suppose, his most intimate friends 
in college. 

1. Manning was captain during falls of 1880 and 1881, 
and while I have no recollection of any Harvard man 
being hurt seriously in the Yale and Princeton games 
(and I played in all), I went yesterday in order to make^ 
as thorough and reliable a search as possible to the 
Harvard library. I looked through the files of the 
Crimson and Advocate. 

I find that the only case mentioned of any injury 
received in these games for falls of 1880 and 1881 was 
in the case of Boyd and Foster slightly injured a few 
minutes before the close of game with Yale on Boston 
base-ball grounds, November 20, 1880. 

This injury must have been a very slight one, or 
I should have remembered it. 

At New Haven, November 12, 1881, game with Yale, 
E. S. Perin, '82, who had been troubled for some time 
with a lame or weak ankle (received while " skylark- 
ing " on the green in front of Matthews' Hall in college 
yard), received no injury, but did not find his ankle 
strong enough to play out the whole hour and a half and 
so retired. 



LETTERS FROM PLAYERS 169 

No mention is made of tliis in the papers referred to, 
but I wish to give all my recollections. You j'ourself 
played in both of the games referred to, and may be 
able to bear me out from your memory. I am safe in 
saying that no Harvard man received any serious injury 
in their Princeton games. 

2. Manning was a thorough believer in athletics and 
did much for the game of football at Harvard. I 
believe that if he were alive to-day he would, like 
myself, be opposed to mass plays and many other 
modern movements which, disguised under various 
forms or names, all put too great a premium on mere 
brute strength, and which are particularly dangerous to 
school teams and small boys who play this game, grow- 
ing in popularity all over the country. 

Personally I should be glad to go back more to the 
open game of 1879-1884, and I think that many would 
agree with me. 

I don't think the present changes go far enough, or 
that they will cure the present evils. But we can wait 
and see. Believe me. 

Your old opponent and faithful friend, 

T. C. Thacher. 

Yarmouthpoet, Mass., March 19, 1894, 
I have gladly filled out and now enclose the blank 
form you have circulated. While my football playing 
extended at school and college over a period of ten 
years, during which time I probably took part in four 
or five hundred games, — match and practice together, — 
still I do not feel that anything I could write for pub- 
lication would command the respect and attention you 
desire. So I will simply say tliat I have never seen 
a player permanently injured during that time. 
Very truly yours, 
Harvard, '85. Johx Simpkins. 



170 FOOTBALL PACTS AND FIGUEES 

New York, March 13, 1894. 

My " serious injury " was received in tlie early part 
of the first practice game of my senior year, when I was 
not in the best possible condition. I twisted my knee 
soon after play began and very foolishly finished the 
game. If I had stopped playing at once I have no 
doubt a rest of a day or two would have been sufficient. 
As it was, I had water on the knee and was prevented 
from playing any more that fall. 

In the eleven years that I followed football closely — 
at Exeter and Harvard — I recall only four really serious 
accidents. Two men at Exeter, one a member of a 
visiting team, had their legs broken, but in neither case 
was the fracture a bad one. Phillips, '86, of the Har- 
vard team, was accidently kicked in the head in a 
Princeton game and badly hurt. He was obliged to 
resign the captaincy of the nine the following spring, 
but the year afterward captained and played on the 
nine. Holden, '88, received an injury that might have 
proved fatal, but has left, I believe, no permanent injury. 

I have always considered football the best of the 
athletic sports for developing a man and bringing him 
into good physical condition. Unquestionably it is the 
most scientific of all sports. 

Comparing the two sports in which I have taken an 
active part — base-ball and football — it is my experience 
that a game of base-ball is far more tiring than one of 
football, and I attribute this to the fact that in football 
all the muscles of the body are constantly in play, while 
in base-ball certain muscles are strained to the utmost, 
although the player, especially if he is an outfielder, 
may have practically nothing to do. 

I trust your enquiries may show the public at large 
that football is a sport to be encouraged. 
Very truly yours, 

Waldo W. Willard. 



LETTERS FROM PLAYERS 171 

Philadelphia, April 13, 1894. 

My story is easily told, as you see. I am a very great 
enthusiast on football and think from my own experience 
that there is no game like it. 

I plaj'^ed in but five university games, however, sub- 
mitting to the mortification of having a freshman put in 
my place, but as I was in my uniform on the field from 
September 24 to November 25, I had a fairly good 
schooling in the game, I am much obliged to you for 
doing me the honor of selecting me as a sufficiently rep- 
resentative man in football to furnish the little informa- 
tion I possess on the subject, and fear I don't deserve it, 
but in conclusion I can say that my experience was 
almost entirely without accident, that I found it much 
less rough than it appeared to be in the actual play, and 
that I was never better or stronger in my life. Believe 
me, with kind regards, Very truly yours, 

Louis A. Biddle. 

Philadelphia, 1893. 
I have played football for two years, and never was 
hurt to amount to anything, and think the training and 
the work has done me a lot of good. Football, as it is 
played to-day, is good enough for me. 

Yours, 
Charles M. Wharton. 

Chicago, May 3, 1894. 
Regarding my injury, I will say tliat I have always 
considered it to be due to the fact that I Avas wearing 
a pair of new shoes with very sharp cleats. I was 
twisted about in a scrimmage, and the shoe holding firmly 
to the ground the two bones of the leg were twisted, 
one upon the other, causing both to snap. My chief 
regret over this occurrence arose from the fact that it 
debarred me from playing football for the remainder of 



172 FOOTBALL FACTS AlfD FIGURES 

that season. I never felt the slightest ill effects from 
the injury after my recovery, and the best evidence 
that it left no unpleasant results behind may be found 
in the fact that, for three or four years after graduating, 
I annually played football here on the team of the 
Chicago University Club, taking part with very little 
training in a number of rough games against college 
teams. Perhaps I need not tell you that I consider 
football to be the greatest game ever played. I feel 
that it gives one a sense of self-reliance and cultivates 
the ability to think and act quickly when exposed to dan- 
ger. Should there be a younger generation of Hamlins 
of Yale, I shall hope to see them play football. With 
kind regards, I remain, Very truly yours, 

Haekt L. Hamlin. 

New York, May 5, 1894. 

In all my experience as a university team player I 
have never actually and personally known of a single 
case of anything like permanent injury as the result of 
football playing. The worst accident of which I have 
any personal knowledge was the breaking of a collar- 
bone, which was entirely well in three weeks. I have 
known of worse injuries as the result of both cricket 
and base-ball. 

So far as I am personally concerned, I regard my 
football experience as having had a decidedly and per- 
manently beneficial effect upon my physical health. 

It gives me pleasure to testify to my belief in, and 
admiration for, what I consider the very best all-around 
game ever played. Yours very truly, 

C. A. Griscom, Jr. 

Philadelphia, April 24, 1894. 
I shall never regret the day I first stepped upon the 
football field. I consider football a manly game, and 



LETTERS FROM PLAYERS 173 

in ray profession energy and vitality are required, both 
of which in my estimation I acquired in the game. All 
of my classmates, as well as my college-mates, who played 
on the 'varsity team are robust and healthy. What, 
then, is better proof of the value of the game and its 
worth to the young student. Above all I claim a player 
will acquire " sand," which is so often wanting in the 
average college man. 

I wish I had the power to influence the college 
authorities to vote for the continuance of the most 
popular game now played in this countr}^ 

My hope is that it may never die. 

Very respectfull}^ 3'ours, 

Irving E. Ziegler. 

Upper Lake, Cal., April 15, 1894. 
I was deeply interested in athletics of all kinds while 
I was at college, though I devoted myself especially 
to rowing, and I have since followed other sports as care- 
fully as I could from this distance. Therefore, I am very 
glad to have an opportunity to write my opinion about 
jfootball a little more fully than your questions require. 
While at school, I played football for several years, but 
it was then such a crude game that I do not consider 
that I played it, as the meaning now is, so I have given 
only one year as my experience. As regards the most 
serious injury I received on the field, I have stated that 
it was a swollen knee, but I think it right to say that 
that knee I injured a good deal when a mere boy, in 
learning to skate, as I had a very severe attack of water 
on the knee at that time, and never considered it per- 
fectly strong, so whatever was the cause which made it 
swell, it does not follow that the same cause would have 
hurt a sound knee. And I remember that at the time I 
was not conscious of any fall, strain, or blow which 
might have brought it on. The injury was not severe 



174 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

enough to prevent my keeping on with that game 
nor from playing another game a week later, though I 
had to give up all intermediate practice. Nor did it 
interfere with my rowing the following spring. In 
fact, I have always been able to ride, run, walk, row, 
work, or do any thing I want, without pain or incon- 
venience, and the only time I notice the trouble is after 
sitting in one position for an hour or so, and then my 
knee begins to pain me, but the pain leaves as soon 
as I walk a few steps. I was in very good condi- 
tion at the time, and think that it can all be attrib- 
uted to the earlier injury. I think that the effect 
of the game upon me as an individual, both physi- 
cally and mentally, was extremely good, and I do not 
see it can fail to be the same with others. I do not 
believe in both teams piling themselves on top of a run- 
ner. To me this appears to be most prolific of acci- 
dents. If any part of the player's person, who has the 
ball, other than his feet, touches the ground, the ball 
should be " down " there. Thus there would be no object 
in trying for any more gain, and so no one would 
have to try to stop him. Lastly, I don't think a man 
trying for a catch should be interfered with at all. Too 
often he is banged on the ground in the hope of dis- 
abling him, and now some of his own side have to uphold 
him. Either he should not be allowed to, run at all, or 
else his opponents should not come near him. It would 
be as fair for one side as for the other. 
Yours truly, 

Charles Mifflin Hammond. 

Philadelphia, April 2, 1894. 

The total number of match games in which I 

have played will reach over 125, in which number 

I was compelled to leave the game but once on 

account of my injuries, although a sprained ankle and 



LETTERS FROM PLAYERS 175 

a contusion of the sternum made it advisable for me 
to leave the field on two other occasions. All the rest 
of the games I played from start to finish. The seven 
3^ears I was in college I think would average fifty prac- 
tice days a }^ear, or a total of tliree hundred and fifty 
days, without any thing to show for them but a general 
muscular soreness, and this was usually absent after 
three or four weeks of practice. 

Will say that in all the games I have ever played in 
have never seen a serious accident, nor do I know of 
any of the contestants being any the worse to-day for 
the few bruises they received at the time. 

Have also refereed and umpired a great many games, 
and have never seen a serious accident in any of them. 
I remain, yours respectfully, 

J. HiLAND Dewey. 

Philadelphia, April 25, 1894. 
The happiest recollections of my college daj^s are 
connected with the football field. And to football 
I feel I owe my present good health and sound con- 
stitution. Without a doubt, in my estimation, football 
is the grandest game ever played, and the good it has 
done the rising generation, both mentally and physically, 
cannot be measured. And you may rest assured that 
any thing I could do to advance the popularity of the 
sport would be done most gladly. 

Very truly yours, 

Howard H. Sypher. 

Minneapolis, Minn. 
The papers in regard to football to my sons, T. B. 
and S. N. Morison, I have received, and will forward 
to them. But as they are now in Mexico, probably in 
the wilds, at a distance from a post-oflice, a reply will 
be uncertain — may at best be delayed many weeks. 



176 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

» 

As the papers show, you want positive answers to the 
questions from themselves directly, and over their own 
signatures. I know their judgment in the matter, and 
have been so much interested in the whole subject since 
they left home for school, more than ten years ago, that 
I cannot resist the opportunity to say for them both 
that they and I believe that to their school and college 
athletic training, which was largely taken under the 
spur and interest of football, both owe their present 
physical strength and vigor. Both Ben and Stan 
played football at Exeter and Yale seven years. Stan- 
ford had never any serious injury. Ben (T. B.) had, 
during the sophomore year, the muscles of one thigh 
seriously injured by (I think) a kick, was out of 
college for several months, but returned the next year 
well — and played football to the end of his college 
course. 

As a member of his family, I have heard Ben so often 
make the replies to the questions enclosed that I have 
written, and send them for whatever you may consider 
them worth, thinking from receiving duplicates of the 
papers that you earnestly desire the answer. 
Very sincerely, etc., 

R. N. MoEisoN. 

SWAKTHMGEE COLLBGE, April 21, 1894. 

It affords me much pleasure to reply to yours of April 
19: First. 1873-77, Philadelphia High School, Associa- 
tion Game ; 1877-78, Philadelphia High School, Rugby 
Game ; 1879-86, Philadelphia Cresent Football Club, 
Rugby Game ; 1878, 1881, 1886, 1887, University of 
Pennsylvania ; 1888, 1889, 1890, at Swarthmore College ; 
1891, at Swarthmore as playing coach. Really playing 
every day continuously, during the football season, for 
twenty-one years. 

Second. During that time I have received four serious 



LETTERS FROM PLAYERS 177 

injuries. In ISYS — University of Pennsylvania and 
Princeton — weighing but 140 pounds, tackled and 
threw Ilarlan, his Aveight coming on me wrenclied my 
hip-joint, preventing my playing again that year. I was 
unconditioned. In 1886 — University of Pennsylvania 
and Princeton — in running with the ball, I went into 
bounds, and was tackled and unintentionally thrown by 
Cowan, dislocating the knee, which still continues weak, 
the fibula being liable to slip out. I was in good con- 
dition. In 1888 — Swarthmore and Lafayette — being 
tackled and downed under a pile, my arm was wilfully 
run up and back, fracturing the acromion end of the 
shoulder, which I feel yet. In 1891 — Lawrenceville and 
A. C. S. N. — in rushing through the centre was butted 
in the jaw, knocking out a tooth and splitting the lower 
jaw at symphysis. So that I have been hurt but twice 
legitimately — the onl}^ time sufficient to lay me off be- 
ing when I was out of condition. At no time has 
sprains or wrenches kept me away from play more than 
three days. 

Physically, football has made me. To it I owe my 
development and strength, being the incentive to 
systematic exercising. It has given me endurance, 
muscular vitality, and quick coordination. It has 
allowed me to live to this day — for I was so delicate 
as a boy as to be predicted a corpse before I was 
sixteen. 

Mentally, it has widened my comprehension, sharpened 
acuteness, quickened perception, given stability and 
permanence to purpose, dissipated bigotry and intoler- 
ance, showing that men are equal and equally important. 
Finally, it is the one game for college-men to play, but 
it requires proper training, and is not safe for untrained 
men. I am, 

Sincerely yours, 

J. KiNZER Shell, M. D. 
13 



178 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

Philadelphia, April 19, 1894. 
In my experience, which has extended over a con- 
siderable time at school and college, I have never known 
any one to be permanently injured in playing football. 
By " permanently injured " I mean injuries of such 
a nature as to affect the after health or ability to 
move about freely in their after-life. I believe that 
the fatal injuries which have appeared in the columns 
of the daily press are due to the fact that those who 
were injured were improperly clad, in poor physical 
condition (such as would render it dangerous to engage 
in any sport), or careless as to their plaj'ing. I am 
further of the opinion that much harm has been done 
the game by reporters, ignorant of the rules of the 
game, who misconstrue pushing and shoving into the 
so-called " slugging." I am. 

Very sincerely yours, 

Hbnbt W. Thornton. 

Newton Highlands, Mass., April 1, 1894. 
Your statements and queries concerning football 
playing have been received but cannot be well answered, 
as A. Rogers Crane, Harvard '84, passed away several 
years ago. 

He played football for several years, but never 
received to my knowledge any serious injury. We 
have always considered that his football playing had 
left a good effect generally. 

Yours truly, 

Edwin R. Crane. 

Upper Lake, Cal., April 2, 1894. 

It is with the greatest satisfaction and pleasure that 
I am allowed to send you my mite of evidence in favor 
of the dear old game. 

Having seen little or nothing of the present style of 



LETTERS FROM PLAYEES 179 

play, I do not feel that I can give an opinion for or 
against it. As to the game itself, one requiring such 
tact, perseverance, and courage must stand at the head 
of college sports. 

If only a grand reunion of all the old players might 
be held, what a living testimonial it would be as to the 
good the game had done and how small and narrow- 
minded would seem the charges against it. Of course 
I believe in a searching physical examination, and then 
go in and win ; only let the game be fair, with not the 
slightest opportunity for unsportsmanlike work. 

As to myself, I think I played as hard as a man 
could, and yet I Avas very fortunate as to accidents, 
which I attribute to being in splendid condition and 
studying the game. I am very well indeed and know 
that my old days at the game have been of lasting 
benefit to me. Trusting in your victory over the 
fanatics, I am, 

Most sincerely yours, 

W. O. Edmunds. 

Savannah, Ga,, April 9, 1894, 
It is the first such favor that has reached me. I am 
sorry my record misses being perfect. But I only left 
the practice field once, and a game never. Thank yon 
for your effort for the game. 

Yours, with cordial remembrance, 

Richard M. Hodge. 

MiDDLETOWN, Cal., April 7, 1894. 
I herewith enclose the blank as per your request re- 
ceived yesterday. I desire to state further that I have 
never been in better condition, physically and mentally, 
than while "in training" for botli football and the 
crew. Thus far I have never noted any injurious after- 
effects, but on the contrary believe my power of endur- 



180 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

ance was greatly increased by participation in both of 
these sports. 

I do not know personally of any cases where there 
have been deleterious after-effects. 

Yours very sincerely, 

Roland E. Hartley, M. D. 

PoRCELLiAN Club, April 9, 1894. 
It seems to me that though while playing many men 
do suffer slight injuries, yet whenever the training is 
judicious, as it is now in all the leading colleges, the 
risk of the injury proving serious is very slight, and the 
effect of the game, morally and physically, is exception- 
ally good. Yours sincerely, 

George R. Fearing. 

New Rochelle, N. Y., April 3, 1894. 
Let the good work go on — but who the devil is mak- 
ing you all this trouble ? They are not going to pass 
anj^ State laws against it, I hope. Football, in my opin- 
ion, is best at its worst — to be Irish. I do not believe in 
all this namby-pamby talk, and hope the game will not 
be emasculated and robbed of its heroic qualities, which 
is its charm and its distinctive quality. People who 
don't like football as now played might like whist — 
advise them to try that. 

Yours faithfully, 

Frederic Remington. 

Boston, April 6, 1894. 
It seems to me that the danger in football is not so 
much to the men, if they do not play a style of game 
beyond what they are trained for, as to the game itself ; 
that I think is in serious danger. If the game be prop- 
erly modified this hue and cry about the danger to the 
men and against the game itself will cease. 



LETTERS FROM PLAYERS 181 

The game as played to-day is grand, is magnificent, 
but it savors too much of the gladiatorial, and if it is 
ever to become a truly national sport, as it deserves, it 
must be made practicable for the large body of young 
men in business, clerks, etc. 

As for the mass plays (relics of the Theban phalanx !), 
if they be not positively dangerous they appear to be 
so ; they make the game forbidding to the fathers 
of all would-be players, are fearfully wearing on col- 
legians, are impossible for all others, and are enjoyable 
by none. 

Trusting that my ideals are no higher than yours, I 
will close, wishing you every encouragement in the 
work of improving the grand old game. 
Yours truly, 

Charles F. Oilman. 

Chicago, April 3, 1894. 

Dr. Arnold of Kugby, on a certain occasion when 
asked his opinion of the game of football, is reported to 
have said that at that time tlie British empire was gov- 
erned by the men that had plaj^ed football at Rugby. 
This is of course a high approval of the game, but in my 
judgment it is not overdrawn. The moral qualities that 
are essential to success in the game are the same qual- 
ities that lead to success in the career of a college grad- 
uate. A lack of courage, or a lack of the capacity to act 
quickly in an emergency, or to meet a crisis with de- 
cision and determination, would make a failure of a man 
as a football player, and the lack of those qualities would 
as surely produce a failure in after-life. 

From the standpoint of physical culture I think 
that too much cannot be said of the game when the 
training is had under the supervision of one who under- 
stands its possibilities. A competent " coach," in my 
judgment, is a very necessary appendix to a university 



182 FOOTBALL PACTS AND PIGUBES 

eleven, and he should be a man that has some knowl- 
edge of physiology. 

The training as well as the practice and the actual 
playing of a match game are of course a severe test of 
one's physical powers, but in my career of three years 
as a football player I do not recall a single instance 
of over training or single illness or injury resulting 
therefrom. 

Very truly yours, 

Jas. S. Haelak. 

Philadelphia, Pa., April 22, 1894. 

I have taken considerable pleasure in answering your 
questions. My only injury in two years' play was a 
broken nose, the result of a display of temper and not 
to be placed against football. 

Football is undoubtedly the best of our out-door 
sports. 

It seems to me that I still feel the good effects of the 
training, and know tliat the lessons in self-control 
and obedience will aid and benefit me in the struggle 
for existence. 

I most heartily recommend the present game, with its 
systematic methods and training, believing it to be an 
important factor in modern educational methods. 

I have observed that the best men in the field are 
usually the best men in the classroom, and certainly out 
in the world they stand out in the great game of life, 
in fair competition with other men. 

Please record me as a stanch supporter of the game. 
I am, sir, yours sincerely, 

Geo. G. Ross, M. D. 

Neav York, March 3, 1894. 
I am glad to contribute my portion to your enquiry 
regarding the effects of football. 



LETTERS FROM PLATERS 183 

During the two years playing on Princeton team I 
was never more than bruised. 

Without hesitation I regard my athletic work as one 
of the best features of my college life. Before it I 
had but moderate health and strength; ever since I have 
enjoyed uninterrupted good health and seem able to re- 
sist any thing. Hospital work is confessedl}'- most try- 
ing. Few men complete their service witliout some 
sickness, or without showing to a marked degree the 
effects of confinement, hard work, and irregular hours. 
Two years of service seem to have made no impression 
upon my health. However, I think we would make a 
great mistake if we were to confine ourselves to the ques- 
tion of the physical well-being of the lovers of the game. 

In teaching us, as no other game does, the value of 
regular habits, good food, and avoidance of all excesses, 
it does a most excellent service. 3Iost of all I value t])e 
coolness of mind, readiness in emergency, and self-con- 
trol, which, I am sure, football playing gives. These 
points one can make, not only from personal experience, 
but from the common testimony of all who watch the 
game, for I know that I have never heard a discussion 
on this topic in a general company where it was not 
granted that these qualities were prominent in the 
make-up of football men. To me it is this effect on 
the mental stamina which makes the game the best of 
all we have. 

Yours very truly, 

Davtd Bovaird, M, D. 

Bluepield, W. Va., March 21, 1894. 

Football is, in my opinion, the best game there is. 
Besides playing while at school and college, I have 
played at least one game every year for the past five 
years, without injuries of any kind except small bruises. 

The training received in football has been of the 



184 FOOTBALL PACTS AND FIGURES 

greatest benefit both to myself and to others with whom 
I have played. Since leaving college I have gone 
through a good deal of hard physical labor, which I do 
not think I could have stood without the training I re- 
ceived in football and base-ball while at college. 

I may add that I know of no one, personally, who 
was ever permanently injured at football. 
Yours truly, 

F. R. Wadlbigh. 

Soudan, Minn., March 16, 1894. 
In reply to your circular in regard to football, I wish 
to say that in spite of the fact that the effect of the 
game upon myself was bad, I am much in favor of the 
sport. At the principal colleges the training is ridicu- 
lously severe, and I believe, as at present played by the 
university teams, is nearly an unqualified evil. But 
with judicious and moderate training the sport is the 
best, for vigorous men, that I am acquainted with. 
Yours very truly, 

J. R. FiNLAT. 

Cambridge, March 14, 1894. 
In addition to the questions answered I should like to 
say that I consider football not only a very interesting 
game, but a wonderfully good mental discipline. I 
have always believed, and still believe, that football and 
boxing have done more to make it possible for me to 
keep my temper than any verbal instruction, mental 
exercise, or good example could possibly have done. 
Yours truly, 

F. J. Bangs. 

New York, March 26, 1894. 
As a boy I was quite frail and sickly. At the age of 
about ten I went to school at Rugby in England, which 



LETTERS FROM PLATERS 185 

was one of the preparatory schools for Rugby College. 
Having a natural fondness for out-of-door sports, I im- 
mediately went in for steeple-chasing across country, 
football, and cricket, and I have always claimed that it 
was owing to these sports that I developed physically 
into a fairly powerful man. I plaj'-ed football for two 
years at this school, and was on the team the last one. 
I then left Rugby, owing to the expectation of coming 
back to this country and going to Harvard. Before 
returning, however, I was another year at a school at 
Norwood, just out of London, and played on a team 
there. I then came over to this countrj'^ and plaj'^ed on 
a team in New York City for a year, the team being 
composed of the best playei's we could find at that 
time. I then went to the Adams Academy, Quincy, 
Mass., and played for two years on their first eleven. 
From there I went into Harvard and played on the 
university team, freshman year, and also on the fresh- 
man team. During all these years I do not know of 
any player being permanently injured in any of the 
games in Avhich I played, nor was I at any time hurt, 
except that, as I played full-back or half-back in all the 
games, and, therefore, had a great deal of kicking to 
do, the muscles of my right leg were very much 
strained, but I do not feel that I have ever had an}^ 
ill effects from it. In the series of questions which 5'ou 
have asked me to answer and which I enclose, j^ou ask 
" What Avas the most serious injury you ever received 
on the field ? " The answer I gave, saying, that a front 
tooth was extracted by a fellow catching his glove in 
it, seems rather a peculiar one to happen on a football 
field, but it was certainly the most serious injury I 
received, and a cavity, in reply to your second question, 
made it " permanent." I was terribly disappointed at 
having to leave college at the beginning of my sopho- 
more year, owing to my father's failure in business, but 



186 FOOTBALL PACTS AND riGTTEES 

even after that pla5^ed for a year or two occasionally on 
different teams around New York, and also one in 
Chicago, and have been in splendid health all these 
yeai's. Of course, I realize very fully that the competi- 
tion between the different colleges was not nearly so 
great in those days, nor was the training as severe as 
it is now, but I feel from the experience I had, and 
all the men who played at that time, and the fact that 
none of us were injured permanently, that the game in 
itself is a grand one. 

Yours very truly, 

Fked L. Eldeidge. 

Washington, D. C, March 2, 1894. 

I entered college at the age of seventeen, not very 
well developed physically, and weighing 160 pounds. 
I had never seen a game of football played under col- 
legiate rules, but went into it for exercise and kept 
it up because I found it of benefit to me physically, 
mentally, and morally. At the end of my senior season 
of football I weighed .183 stripped, had put an inch 
or so on my chest and had gained correspondingly in the 
rest of my anatomy. This was not, of course, all due 
to football, but I am positive that a large percentage 
of gain came from that source. 

I was never seriously injured, and never saw but two 
such cases during my time of play : one a green man 
who had his leg fractured, and the other Holden's 
injury in the game against Harvard which you refereed 
for us — the latter one the result of palpable carelessness 
on Holden's part. 

I never stood better in my studies than during the 
ball season, and I was never more free from college 
forms of dissipation. I think the game is a vast advan- 
tage to any young man, as an educational factor, if kept 
in its proper place. 



LETTEES FROM PLATERS 187 

There are, I think, now, three valid objections to the 
sport : 

1st. The tendency to professionalism, which has ruined 
several of our sports, notably boxing and horse-running, 
introducing inevitably an undesirable element. 

2d. The increased power of the game toward personal 
injiuy, due, I think, to making mass plays the game, 
instead of subservient to and a part of it. 

3d, The amount of time it may take up from the 
work of the curriculum. The last I am not so familiar 
with, but from the reports of a younger brother now in 
college, I judge that instead of concessions being made 
for football it excludes and outranks study more than 
it ought. 

Outside of these three objections I know of nothing 
against it. I am very fond of the game, have followed 
it pretty closely, and am only sorry that I am too old 
and too much of a "back number" to ever actively 
enter the arena again. 

It has aided me in my profession, inasmuch as it has 
taught me self-reliance, to judge quickly and for myself, 
and to keep my temper — three very essential points in 
my profession. Believe me, sincerely, 

James R. Church, M. D. 

New York, April, 1894. 
I played the American Association game for thirteen 
years, for three of which I was member of the Princeton 
University team, and captain of same for one year. For 
one year I played under the Rugby rules in Princeton 
University team, and was captain of the same. For two 
years I played on tlie Columbia University team (Rugby 
rules). In proportion to the number of players I con- 
sider that quite as many men were seriously injured 
under the old Association rules as are at the present 
time under the American Rugby rules. 



188 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

In recent years as a surgeon I have had considerable 
experience with football injuries, but very few of such 
accidents have been of a serious character. I feel sure 
that reports of injuries received at football have been 
very much exaggerated. A. J. McCosh, M. D. 

March 20, 1894. 

It is with pleasure that I answer your circular-letter, 
and I highly appreciate your efforts. 

I forgot, in answering your questions, that I once 
broke that important bone called the clavicle. That 
shoulder is my strongest limb. 

I do not think it best for a timid boy to try and enter 
the game of football. The worse knocks are received 
when trying to make them easy. 

How grand it must be now to play football, since it 
has become a scientific game ! We always played it 
scientifically, but each one used his own judgment, and 
it was individually scientific. Now it is truly scientific. 
How I would like to try a game nowadays ! But I know 
my staying qualities would be short, for want of train- 
ing. One must train for it, if only for wind. A tired 
man is weak, therefore liable to get hurt, where a trained 
one would escape. 

I note with pleasure that the game is taking a hold 
down in the South, at Dallas, Waco, and Fort Worth, 
in Texas. 

I am out in the western part of the State of Texas, 
so do not get to enter the sport, though I don't believe 
I shall ever get too old to enter it if the opportunity 
ever affords. 

My advice to young people would be to learn to tum- 
ble (not gracefully) easily ; and, above all, learn to take 
a knock without feeling pugnacious. Be a gentleman ; 
if the time comes and you have to fight, your chances 
are best. 



LETTERS FROM PLAYERS 189 

If I had a son, whether he were going into football, 
or, later, entering business, I would advise him the same. 
I am, as ever, 

Jas. a, Wetherbee. 

Atlanta, Ga., March 26, 1894. 
I began to play football as soon as I was able to play 
anything, and kept it up continuously all through my 
school life and at college. I played on a great many 
different elevens before I went to college, and had a 
pretty rough experience in the game, always playing 
with men who were older and heavier than myself. I 
do not remember ever having received any injury of tlie 
slightest consequence. Of course, I have been covered 
with bruises, and have had slight sprains that disap- 
peared very quickly. I do not remember ever having 
been incapacitated or of losing time from any injury. 
I follow the game as closely as possible in the news- 
papers, but have had very few opportunities to see any 
of the games since 1882, and, of course, do not feel that 
I know very much about the present game. I think the 
battering-ram idea is all wrong. 

Yours very truly, 

H. M, Atkinson. 

New York, April 2, 1894. 

You, I am sure, understand thoroughly how deep is 
my interest in " the " sport, and how great is my desire 
to have the public realize the value of the game. 

I played one year at Phillips Exeter Academy on the 
scrub team, and afterward as a substitute. The next 
j'ear I played on the Harvard freshman team, and the 
Harvard second eleven. The two following years — my 
junior and senior years — I played on the Harvard 'Var- 
sity. The two years also, while studying at the Law 
School, I played on the 'varsity. 



190 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

Up to the time of my graduation — five seasons — 
I think I did not miss a day's practice ; certainly I 
could not have missed more than a day or two. I never 
missed a game during this time. The same statement 
applies to the two years when I played as a graduate, 
except that I did not begin to play until about the 
fourth week of each of these seasons. Moreover, I lost 
two days' practice at the close of the first of these sea- 
sons. Still further, I never left the field on account of 
an injury either in a game or practice, and was never 
disqualified. 

In the course of these seven seasons I received innu- 
merable small scratches and bruises, and knew what 
it was to be sore and lame in every portion of my body. 
The only injuries, however, which I can remember which 
amounted to anything at all were : (1) A badly sprained 
finger, (2) a slightly twisted knee, (3) several cuts in the 
eyebrows. 

(1) The sprained finger annoyed me a good deal, 
especially at first, but did not keep me from a moment 
of practice. It came around all right in the course of the 
winter, and now shows no trace of the injury. 

(2) In a "scrub" game, a few days after the end of 
my last 'varsity season, while trying a kind of work to 
which I was entirely unaccustomed, I twisted my knee. 
I had no difficulty in finishing the game, and the only 
effect was a decided limp for a couple of weeks. 

(3) My eyebrows were cut open several times, owing 
to the sharpness of the underlying bone. These cuts 
healed up in about a week, usually, except one which I 
received late in my first Law School season. I was then 
in very bad condition — needlessly overtrained — and as 
a result, I think, the cut was very slow in healing. It 
was fully six weeks before the cut was completely 
healed, and it caused me considerable annoyance. There 
has been no further trouble, however. 



LETTERS FROM PLAYERS 191 

This is a complete list of all the terrible calamities 
which befell me during seven years of football play- 
ing. All these injuries — as I believe is usually the 
case — were received in practice, excepting only the 
twisted knee, received in " scrub " game, as I men- 
tioned above. A few almost imperceptible scars in 
my eyebrows are the sole reminders of these football 
accidents. 

I shall not enlarge upon the mental and physical 
effects of the game upon myself and upon many others 
whom I have known. You know my ojsinion about 
these matters already. I firmly believe that there is no 
training so good for growing boys or young men, not 
only pliysically and mentally, but morally as well. 
Ever}'^ boy should be induced — almost compelled — to 
take part in the game ; and, if you can only get the public 
generally to understand and appreciate its true character, 
it will be a long step toward that desirable result. 

As you ask me to tell you of my present occupation, 
etc., I add that I am a lawyer liere in New York. I am 
sure that my strong constitution and capacity for hard 
work, which Avere developed by football, will prove of 
great advantage to me. 

Forgive me if I have written too much for your 
purposes. Faithfully yours. 

Perry D. Trafford. 

Boston, April 4, 1894. 
I played football seven years, three at school and four 
at college, and notwithstanding my weight — for at no 
time did I ever reach 142 pounds — I never received any 
injury which amounted to any thing very serious. I 
have played in nearly foi'ty games and have never been 
obliged to leave the field for any injury ; in fact I have 
never been hurt, except badly handled in one — Penn- 
sylvania — game. I feel that the game of football has 



192 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

been very beneficial to me in every way. Before I went 
to college I was obliged to go West for my health on 
account of weak lungs, but throughout ray entire col- 
lege course I enjoyed splendid healtli. I think besides 
it has given a certain confidence, coolness, and self- 
reliance that is of inestimable value to me in other 
sports, as running, sparring, tennis, etc. I was alwaj's 
very nervous before any game, large or otherwise, but I 
found that after the first plunge it rapidly disappeared. 
This talk of terrible roughness and brutality in the 
championship games seems to me to be absolutely 
untrue. I found that the larger games were not really 
so rough, tlie only difference I noticed was the terrible 
earnestness and determination, which cannot but be 
impressed on one's mind. Perliaps the reason of this 
was, that I was outweighted in every game and 
didn't notice the difference, but I hardly think so. My 
physical condition in football season was not generally 
very good, as I was apt to go " fine," but with the 
exception of a few abscesses and boils, I never felt any 
after results. I recommend the game to every boy, for 
I consider it the very best sport in the world. 
Yours truly, 

S. V. R. Cbosby. 

Knoxville, Tenn., March 18, 1894. 
I think football is a game that, if modified a bit, 
would be the most fascinating of college games. How- 
ever, in its present state, I am a great admirer of it, and 
shall continue so as long as I am able to advocate and 
play the game. I have played base-ball and football 
both, the former for eight years. Even though my con- 
nection with football is yet in its infancy, I admire it 
much more than I do base-ball. I am. 
Yours truly, 

Hakeis T. Colliek 



i 



LETTERS FROM PLAYERS 193 

Oswego, N. Y., March 6, 1894. 

1. I played (Rngby) about ten years in all, a year or 
two on an English team abroad, then four years (fresh- 
man, substitute, and university) in college, and three 
more in the Theological Seminary (university). 

2. My most serious injury was a slight cut over the 
eye from a collision with Jack Harding. 

3. It was not a permanent injury, but it gave me a 
permanent idea why the Yale boys had the reputation 
they bore at the time. 

4. Received in a practice match with Trinity, when as 
substitute I was detailed to take the place of a Trinity 
man. 

5. That was a valuable part of my training. 

GENERAL REMARKS 

1. Does anybody think boxing should be suppressed 
because bruisers and sluggers give brutal exhibitions in 
the prize ring ? It is perfectly true of football, as it is 
of boxing most certainly, that it affords a fine oppor- 
tunity to the brute to show his brutality, and a tempta- 
tion to the man whose gentlemanly qualities are only 
skin deep to exhibit his coarse nature. For the very 
same reason it also affords a fine opportunity, as boxing 
does, for a true gentleman to show that he is one, and 
for the man whose gentlemanly qualities need temper- 
ing and strengthening to develop them in practice. 
But if we believe in the predominance of gentlemanly 
qualities in college athletes — and who does not ? — by 
the same token we must believe that the prevailing 
influence of football will be of the best. 

2. Does anybody think that the right way to develop 
manly and gentlemanly character in young men, when 
temptation arises — as in football it undeniably some- 
times does arise — to do an ungentlemanly act, is to re- 
move them from the influence of the temptation ? There 

13 



194 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

may still be colleges which forbid card-playing, billiards, 
theatre, and dancing, on the theory that the way to 
keep young men from vice is to remove the possibility 
of transgression. I am loath to think that manly Yale 
will ever take the ground that it cannot trust its students 
to be gentlemen if opportunity is allowed them to do 
otherwise. That would be the real meaning of abolition. 

From the tenor of your questions I judge you want 
an opinion as to the effect of training toward prevention 
of injury, as well as development of health. My em- 
phatic opinion is that the man who goes in with all 
his miglit, in apparently absolute recklessness, is far 
safer than the man who tries to save himself a bruise or 
two. You remember the match with Columbia in 1880 
when we agreed not to hurt one another, as the Prince- 
ton game came the following Thursday. Don't you re- 
call that three of the best men on the team were laid up 
— Chummy Eaton with a broken collar-bone — because 
we undertook to " play easy " ; but we came out of the 
Princeton game without a scratch ? Training gives a 
man confidence and shows him how to handle himself. 
It is not only valuable for the match but afterward, as I 
can testify. I am sure I owe much of my vigorous 
general health to old football days ; but I also think it 
is partly because we practised " falling on the ball," 
that though I do a good deal more running, jumping, 
and falling down than becomes a D. D., it never occurs 
to me that I am going to hurt myself, and I never do. 

Moreover, I think I owe something mentally and 
morally to my football playing. My stand was always 
highest in the fall term. But besides the "humanities" 
which were dinged into me in the classi'oom, I value 
what some would be pleased to call the " inhumanities " 
dinged into me on the football field. There is a " human- 
izing " in the true sense of the word which comes by 
tackling your college adversary in a good football game, 



LETTERS FKOM PLATERS 195 

as well as that which comes according to the old school- 
men by disputation in the lists of logic. 

Finally, if you will pardon length, they say : " After 
all, who gets the benefit of all the training, etc, except 
eleven to fifteen men out of tlie fifteen hundred in 
the university?" Who besides? Every man jack 
of them who from the time he was in petticoats 
dreamed he might sometime be on the 'varsity eleven, 
and kicked his baby legs, and sprinted and wrestled 
and felt his biceps. Show me the man who never 
felt the ambition to be swift, or strong, or shrewd, 
or quick-eyed, or skilful in foot, or arm, or back, or 
legs, or head, and there we may find one who never 
got any benefit from the 'varsity football games. 

While all the rest of the football world has been 
airing its views, and you, old fellow, more than all the 
rest put together, have been holding the game up out 
of the reach of the detractors, as you used to hold the 
ball up tantalizingly out of reach of a tackle till you 
" passed it back," I have been moved from time to time 
to put in my oar. Still I have felt that my business 
was to " keep back." Now, as you call me up, I will 
deliver ray kick, which I only trust may not this time 
be too long. 

I am to preach at Battell the 20th of May, and if you 
are in New Haven then shall hope to see you. 

Cordially, 

B. W. Bacon. 

Newburgh, N. Y., March 19, 1894. 
I consider football the game, and although from its very 
nature it is naturally a rough one, still, when you take 
in consideration the thousands who are to-day playing 
it, bad accidents are very rare, and in the great majority 
of cases these will be found to have happened where the 
men were not properly trained or looked after. With 



196 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

one exception I know of no one among my personal 
acquaintances who is at the present time suffering 
from a serious permanent injury, the result of foot- 
ball. 

The newspapers are responsible for the grossly exag- 
gerated idea a great many people have on this score. 
Only the other day the New York papers contained an 
account of the death of a young lawyer, a graduate of 
Yale in 1885 or 1886. The papers stated that his death 
was due to blood poisoning, the result of an injury 
received in a game of football at Yale. It has since 
been proven that no such man ever played on any of 
the teams at Yale, and not only that, but his room mate 
states that to the best of his knowledge and belief the 
man never played even " scrub " football. 

I asked a well-known doctor as to whether it would 
be possible for any one to die from blood-poisoning, the 
result of an injury received eight or nine years previous, 
and the reply was " No." Still, in spite of all this, this 
man's death will be attributed by the great majoritj'^ to 
football. This only serves as an illustration of how 
people get such absurd ideas in regard to the injuries 
and deaths resulting from the game. 

The only bad effects traceable to football are in those 
very rare cases where men have been permanently 
injured. On the other hand it undoubtedly has a ten- 
dency to promote regular and good habits, as that is one 
very essential part of the training ; it teaches self- 
control, and strengthens and quickens one both men- 
tally and physically. 

I have no doubt that years will be added to the lives 
of many as the direct result of the greatly increased 
endurance and vitality received from playing the game 
of football. 

In ninety-nine cases of a hundred, the most rabid 
opponents of football are those who know absolutely 



LETTERS FROM PLAYERS 197 

nothing about the game, and, in fact, have never even 
seen it played. 

Wishing you every success in your work, I am, 
Yours truly, 

Edwin S. Belknap. 

San Antonio, Tex., March 17, 1894. 

No man was seriously or permanently injured in the 
four years I was in college, and as far as I have been 
able to follow them have no knowledge of any bad 
effects since, traceable to football. The other questions 
I have answered on the blank sent me. I had the ordi- 
nary Princeton football training. I had two brothers 
on the team, neither of whom was injured, and both 
are enjoying good health to-day. Now, as to my opin- 
ion of the game, mentally, physically, and morally, I 
know of no game that is as capable of developing a man 
physically, his perseverance, his determination, and 
quickness of thought and action, as football. I am a 
great enthusiast on the subject in spite of the strong 
feeling prevailing against it, and will do all in my power 
now and hereafter to uphold the greatest of athletic 
games — football. 

This is my opinion as a college man, a football player, 
and a surgeon. 

Yours truly, 

John H. Bryan, M. D. 

Cambridge, Mass, March 20, 1894. 

All I can say is that I never received any serious, and 
certainly, no permanent, injury. 

I have been temporarily stunned, but that never 
amounted to anything. 

When I hurt my shoulder I did it entirely myself, 
by falling on it and tearing the ligaments, which let the 
arm down off the shoulder and dislocated the clavicle. 



198 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

I think there is no need for me to say that I consider, and 
have so far found the game the best kind that I can pos- 
sibly indulge in for my mental and physical condition. 

The good that I have obtained from football has 
repaid me many times over for the few chances I have 
taken. 

Yours sincerely, 

Robert W. Emmons, 2nd. 

Lynn, Mass., March 19, 1894. 
The short statement about my injury in reply to 
your printed question would make it appear that my 
injury was entirely due to the collision I had in my last 
game. As I wrote you in answer to your last circular, 
the blow was only one of the factors in bringing about 
my nervous trouble. It is only due to football to say 
that the ordinary player, in average condition, would 
have been in good condition again three or four 
days after Thanksgiving Day, having received the 
shock that I had. That last fall I had an unusually 
large combination of circumstances to deal with as cap- 
tain. We had practically a new team to pick out of 
the incoming class, lacked the usual support of the 
coachers, and had to cope with probably tlie strongest 
line Yale ever had. I am not a man with a great 
reserve of strength, and the anxiety I had in turning 
out a team out of so much raw material, and the fact 
that I didn't miss playing a single practice or regular 
game during the season, brought me down altogether 
too " fine" the week before Thanksgiving. I suffered 
from insomnia, and was altogether unfitted to enter the 
final match. I received the blow on the head as I was 
attempting to block off Hefflefinger from one of our 
half-backs. My head collided violently with the lower 
part of his body. I was stunned for a few seconds, but 
the play was not stopped. After tlie game I was in a 



LETTERS PEOM PLAYERS 199 

very nervous and weak condition. Very unwisely, for the 
next few days I indulged in late hours and mild dissi- 
pation, which certainly aggravated my condition. If 
I, in the condition in which I entered the Yale game of 
the previous years, had had this experience, I believe I 
should have had no trouble in resuming my work at 
college. I think college football is a benefit physically 
and mentally to any man who starts in with a good 
physique. 

Trusting that this will not come too late to be of 
service, I am. 

Yours very truly, 

Ralph H. Warren. 

New York City, N. Y. 

It gives me pleasure to answer j^our questions. First, 
because of my love for the game of football, and second, 
because I always found you, when the feeling between 
Yale and Princeton was running very high, a game, 
true sportsman in every sense of the word. 

I played every game, and every minute of every game, 
that Princeton played during the years 1811, 1878, 1879, 
and 1880. I played at 135 pounds, and was never 
seriously hurt ; but was in good shape when the time 
for Princeton to get in the field again came around. 

I am speaking now as a man who has not played foot- 
ball since 1880, when I say I think it the greatest of all 
games, and the effect on the players is generally good. 

If I ever have a boy, he shall go to Princeton with these 
instructions: "Get on the football team. If necessary, 
play three years on the scrub team for the sake of 
getting on the 'varsity in your senior year." 

The great games of football I consider an excellent 
training for a man who has to go out in the world to 
make his way. The great fights that Princeton had 
with Yale in my day taught me one thing : That when 



200 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

there was an opening in the Yale ranks I had to take 
immediate advantage of it, or the line was closed, and 
there is no use in running against a stone wall. So it is 
in the game of "life." Every one at one time or 
another has a great chance, but if advantage is not 
taken of it immediately it is gone, the ranks are closed, 
the numerous seekers after fortune and fame rush in, 
and probably your chance never comes again. 

The training which I got on the football field I con- 
sider as having been of immense advantage to me since 
leaving college. 

Yours very truly, 

Feancis Loney. 

Peikceton-, N. J., March 12, 1894. 
Enclosed please find the list of answered questions 
which was desired of me. In the interest of the game 
it gives me the greatest pleasure to be able to answer 
in this way. Hoping in the most earnest way that the 
effort will increase public favor for the game, 
I am, sincerely, 

T. G. Teenchaed. 

Washington, D. C, March 17, 1894. 

In playing football for a period of four years at 
Princeton, I recall being injured only three times : 
First, cut over the left eye by concussion with same 
part of another man's skull. Second, being thrown 
headlong on the face by a push in making touch-down 
after long run. The ball had to be held, but it was 
hard on the face. Both of above were in practice 
games. Third, two fingers dislocated by a kick in game 
with Rutgers, practically a practice game, their team 
being very raw and vicious. None of these injuries 
was permanent. I was in good condition at the time. 

Respecting the general enquiry, No. 6, I am par- 



LETTERS FROM PLAYERS 201 

ticularly well qualified to give yon an answer, having 
considered the question very fully, and thought over it 
a good deal while at college : I got on the university 
team in sophomore year, and played through the season 
of 1877. Was on team again in fall of 1878, and played 
through all of the preliminary games, and to within two 
days of the time the team left to play in Cambridge, 
when I received a peremptory telegram from my people 
at home to stop playing, my mother being much agitated 
over sensational accounts of tlie game then circulating 
in the papers, and certain medical opinions of a nature 
similar to that mentioned by Mr. Moi'gan as having 
been published in the Times. Knowing that such a 
request would not have been made Avitliout reflection, 
and having been very little interfered with parentally, 
I felt bound to acquiesce in that instance, but not with- 
out very indignant protests from Ballard, who was 
captain at the time, and our football directors. Sub- 
stitutes were not available as now, in those days, and were 
very little practised in team play. It was a particularly 
disappointing experience, as we beat both Harvard and 
your team that fall. Before the next fall got around I 
had gone over the whole question of the present and 
after-effects of the game, and had convinced my family 
by lengthy argument of the beneficial results from the 
exercise and the training of body and temper in playing 
football. Played on team through fall of 1879, when 
we succeeded in beating Harvard and tying jowy 
people. 

I remember very distinctly in the latter game the 
wonderful work behind the line of the Yale captain and 
his remarkable long punts repeated again and again 
from a clear space not over five feet square, sometimes 
saved for him by his men, being the first instance 
of any thing approaching interference that I recall. 
It was wonderful playing, uniformly repeated, and 



202 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

wholly diilerent from the accidental long runs upon 
which many men's reputations were then based. I 
believe that that captain was none other than yourself, 
and take great pleasure in giving you any information 
in my power. 

Very truly yours, 

Blaib Lee. 

Wausau, Wis., March 16, 1894. 
The thoroughness with which you go at your football 
statistics pleases me. 

I trust you will receive a hearty response from all the 
players to whom you have written. 

The results will be interesting to all who want facts. 
The two strong points in the game, to my mind, 
are : First — physical development, and second, quick 
decision. 

Yours truly, 

Charles J. Winton. 

Wilkes-Barre, Pa., March 16, 1894. 
I started to play football in the fall of 1877, at 
the Lawrenceville, and played continuously to 1887, in 
practice and in match games at times, at the position of 
either half-back or full-back. The training and exer- 
cise made a great improvement in my health, both in 
the opinion of my friends and of myself. The most 
severe injury was a strain of the knee joints, causing 
a synovitis which compelled me to go to bed and 
have splints placed on the limb. This injury was not 
caused in a scrimmage, but by an attempt to turn very 
quickly at full speed. I was then playing full-back and 
misjudged as to the direction in which the ball would 
bound, and in order to recover it turned very quickly 
and injured myself. No person was within twenty feet 



LETTERS FROM PLAYERS 203 

of me when the injury occurred, and neither did I get 
the ball. 

Hoping all success in your undertaking, I am, 
Respectfully, your friend, 

A. G. Fell. 

Grakd Rapids, Mich., March 14, 1894. 

As you will remember I was always rather a timid 
player and never was hurt. The effect physically was 
good, but mentally I am in doubt, as I can distinctly 
remember using some pretty hard language two or tlivee 
times against the Princeton men, and was willing to 
back it up too, and think I would do the same to-day. 

It cei'tainly is a game that requires one to hold or 
lose his temper. I have never held mine, and it would 
take more than football training to accomplish it. So I 
am in doubt as to the mental effect. 

I have watched with interest the progress of the game, 
and your great success, and offer you my congratula- 
tions. 

Hoping to see you next June, I am, 

Yours respectfully, 

Ph. C. Fuller. 



HoBOKEN, K J., March 3, 1894. 
I consider football the best sport in every way that a 
man can indulge in. It requires a man to be in good 
healthy condition, or if he be not, then one or two 
weeks of playing will bring him into good condition. In 
order to play one has to give up any injurious habits, 
and one great lesson that the game teaches is that when 
forced to give up smoking or drinking a man learns 
that he is able to give them up when it is necessary to 
do so. No game or sport is a greater developer of the 
physique, nor is there any thing that adds more to health. 



204 FOOTBALL PACTS AND FIGtlEES 

That it is rough cannot be denied, but that slight ele- 
ment of roughness develops pluck and teaches one how 
to control one's temper. Both physically and morally 
as the developer of a true man nothing equals it. 

Edwin A. S. Lewis. 

Princeton, N. J., March 5, 1894. 

I have not only played myself, but I also number 
among my best friends men who have taken an active 
part and prominent position in the sport, and I can only 
speak of it in the very highest terms. 

Occasionally, as in my own instance, a man is compelled 
to quit the game on account of some slight temporary 
injury, but it is for the most part of very rare occur- 
rence. 

The injuries received are for the most part little more 
than bruises or strains, and seldom prove permanent. 
The vast amount of good acquired by the playing of the 
game, both mentally and physically, far outweighs any 
thing that can be said against it ; because, if we were 
to abolish such sport as this we would soon have a 
weaker race of men, who would be much more subject 
to the ordinary ailments and complaints of mankind, 
and whose results are far more injurious than any 
effects produced by football. 

The training to which a college man is submitted pre- 
pares him for harder knocks and blows, and the ground 
on which he plays is free from all obstructions and ex- 
cresences which might injure the player in a fall. 
Most of the injuries we read of in the newspapers, and 
which create such a stir among the outside w^orld, are 
for the most part received by men or boys who know 
little or nothing of the game, and who play in some back 
lot where there are plenty of rocks and other obstruc- 
tions, which bruise and sometimes permanently injure 
the players. This latter, however, is not the result of the 



LETTERS FROM PLAYERS 205 

game, but the ignorance and carelessness of the players. 
I am. Very sincerely, 

Chas. S. Mackenzie. 

Auburn Theological Seminary, 

Auburn, N. Y., March 5, 1894. 

Your communication relative to the American college 
game received. Being an enthusiast on the subject I 
might go into details, but aware of the fact that it is 
greek xoith and not against Greek (notice I use small and 
large letter to express proper relation), I shall only give 
you my experience, and this will make my position 
clear to you. 

As you notice, my most serious injury was a sprained 
ankle. I received this hurt in a game in Avhich a man 
acted as captain who never had filled the position before. 
Four times (I was a half-back) he sent me through the 
same opening, it being a plunge through the centre. 
The fourth time my ankle, being weakened by the suc- 
cessive strains, gave way, one of the opponents treading 
on it while my leg was stretched out. The injury 
lasted about two weeks. I go into details at such full 
length because I wish to make it clear that it was not 
due to over- or undertraining. 

Other hurts and small injuries, such as one receives 
even in acting the fool — letting football aside — these I 
was subject to as everybody else is. 

I have played, i. e., taken part, in match games each 
year since I left college, and find that I am never in 
better condition morally (I believe this is one of the 
strongest arguments in favor of the game), mentally, 
and physically, than when indulging in that sport. 
Morally, in that it uses up that surplusage of animal 
spirits and vitality which, if allowed to work out its 
own salvation, usually finds some weak point in a man's 
moral nature and assails it successfully ; and for myself 



206 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

I would prefer every bone in my body to be broken 
than that I should suffer some of these habits to hold 
dominion over me, even for a season. (This is from the 
inside, for I've been there.) 

As to our mental nature, we all know that what 
quickens life stimulates thought. And as a professor in 
the University of Virginia said to me in 1892 while 
coaching there, "Mr. S., if I should pick out a man 
whom I could follow in peace and in war, my choice 
would be a good football player." 

Physically, I am more of a man than I should have 
been had I never known how to play the game. It took 
pigskin to make a man of me ! I can stand fatigue 
and endure hardships (and we have them in theo- 
logical seminaries) and withal not lose heart. That's 
the greatest lesson I learned — to be a man even in 
defeat. 

I trust you will not regard the above as mere verbosity. 
I mean every word I have said, and if it be not of any 
use in the work you are about to do, only remember 
that it is the feeble voice of one who, an ardent lover of 
the game itself, hopes to see it pi'eserved that other 
generations may taste and see that it is good. 
Very truly yours, 

Wm. C. Spicee. 

Pittsburgh, Pa., March 5, 1894. 

With the understanding that my answers are en- 
thusiasm and not egotism, I will try and answer fully : 

1st. I played (the old game) at Andover three 
years, 18V2, 1873, 1874, and at Yale (the old game), 
1875, and (the new game) 1876, 1877, 1878, and have 
played every season since, playing my last game in 
November, 1893, and have during that time played more 
football than any living man, I believe. 

2d. Never left a game on account of an injury 



LETTERS FROM PLAYERS 207 

or Stopped playing during a game until it was finished 
on any account during twenty-two years of playing. 

3d. I weighed when I began to practise at Yale 
(my first real training) in 1876, 198 pounds, and have 
from my training there and the feeling inspired by my 
general physical and mental condition, in a degree kept 
up ray training, and to-day weigh 197^ pounds. Have 
not been sick from any cause twenty-four hours since 
1872. I also believe that a man who will train properly 
and conscientiously will have a mind that will be able 
to do better work and in less time than the same mind 
M^ould otherwise ; that such a man is more esteemed by 
his associates and can set an example that does much 
good in society, and unless he abuses himself when out 
of training, will lay the foundation for a healthy after- 
life, and be able to meet the trials in business and over- 
come them with more ease on account of his physical 
training received at football. (I have a son eleven 
years old who has been playing and training in his 
boyish way and has not been away from one lesson at 
school for three years, and has excellent health and 
a clear mind.) 

Yours sincerely, 

O. D. Thompson. 

Chicago, III., March 5, 1894. 

While in college I played for three years. Freshman 
year on freshman team, and last two years on university 
team. While I have never received any serious injury 
either in practice or in the game, and have never lost 
a day on account of injury, I have been conscious at 
times of a little weakness in my left knee, the result of 
a strain in practice. 

I think the game of football the best sport that we 
have and think that the benefits resulting from the 
game greatly off-set the chances for injury. In my 



208 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

case it has been very beneficial, and I should dislike to 
see any steps taken to put an end to the sport. 
Yours very truly, 

A. B. Newell. 

Board of Foreign Missions, 

New York, March 6, 1894. 
I enclose herewith the blank sent in your letter of 
February 23. I am very glad of any opportunity to 
assist in the defence of any honest college game. 
I think objections are truly made to football upon the 
ground of the time it consumes and for the false ideal 
it sets up of excellence, not for its own sake, but for the 
sake of vanquishing an adversary. Along both of these 
lines it is capable of improvement. But even with these 
objections to it I think it is a game which those who 
know it best approve most. 

Yours sincerely, 

Robert E. Speer. 

Wilkes-Barre, Pa., March 6, 1894. 

I played football regularly throughout the season 
during the four years I was in college, either against or 
as a member of the university team. I had previously 
had a little practice at the game at St. Paul's School, but 
without any systematic ti'aining. My most serious acci- 
dent at any time was a sprained ankle ; my ankles being 
naturally weak, they seemed to have a dangerous ten- 
dency to turn, whether in practice or in a regular game, 
and regardless of whether I was in good condition or 
otherwise, but the results were never more than tem- 
porary and never kept me from playing a game through 
or left any permanent injury. 

I unhesitatingly say that the general effect of playing 
football in my case was good in every physical sense, and 
I. have never been conscious of any bad results men- 



LETTERS FROM PLAYERS 209 

tally. The habit of regular exercise, regular eating and 
drinking, and regular living generally that is essential 
in training for a college team, not only developed all 
the latent muscle and plij'sique in me, but continued 
witli more or less force after the training season was 
over. I am decidedly in favor of college football as 
advantageous both mentally and physically to any man 
who has any thing in him worth developing. 
Very sincerely, 

John S. Harding. 

Minneapolis, Minn., March 5, 1894. 
I started to play football two years before I entered 
college, playing with High School team. I never was 
hurt until I had j^layed four seasons — that is to say, so I 
could not go in and play if my captain required me to. 
Of course, at times, a man is apt to get slightly hurt, in 
which case it is policy to lay off a few days, as one is 
able to do much better work for the team upon start- 
ing again than if one continued to play with slight 
sprains. The only injury I ever received that amounted 
to anything was when I wrenched my shoulder in the 
fall of 1890. This injury laid me off five weeks, but in 
reality I could have played much sooner if Captain 
Rhodes had not considered it better policy to make 
sure that I was absolutely well before starting again. 
Upon starting to play I did not notice any pain in my 
shoulder, and I have not felt any weakness or pain in 
this member up to this day. I never received an injury 
in playing in the large games, that is, against Harvard 
and Princeton. In fact, I never received a scratch in 
those games, and I have always noticed that a man is 
less liable to get hurt when playing against a scientific 
team. While I was plaj'ing on the Yale team no man 
received injuries that resulted permanently. During all 
the years I have played I have known no one person- 
U 



210 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

ally who has been seriously injured. It is undoubtedly a 
fact that many teams now playing do not understand the 
game, but there are fewer of such aggregations every 
year. As the science of the game advances in the dif- 
ferent sections, I am confident that less will be heard of 
the so-called injuries. The slight strains are more liable 
to be I'eceived early in the season before the player gets 
into shape ; and seldom are strains received later in the 
season unless they are renewals of the old ones. There- 
fore great caution should be taken at beginning of sea- 
son to put one's self in some kind of shape before start- 
ing in to play hard football. My shoulder was wrenched 
early in October, just two weeks after I started to play. 

I can easily praise football as a physical developer. 
When I started to play in New Haven in fall of 1888, 
I only weighed 180 stripped, whereas I weighed just 
202 pounds the last year I played at Yale. I did not 
increase any of my muscles to an enormous size, thus 
becoming muscle-bound, but all of them showed the 
effects of my training, and every muscle increased in 
size, according to measurements of Dr. Seaver. I have 
not even now lost good results obtained in training, and 
I am much better pi'epared to stand any hard strain or 
work than before entering college. The muscles of my 
legs, arms, back, and neck were especially developed. I 
think the discipline I received on football field in re- 
straining my temper was alone worth the time given up 
to training. Besides, learning to take advantage of 
openings, and learning to quickly change tactics when 
laid out plans fail, are essentials of a football player, 
and to do this one must think quickly and act much 
quicker, which trains the mind by keeping it at all times 
concentrated on the game. These are just a few of the 
advantages on the field, and to wind up I shall give a 
few of the other benefits resulting. 

In the first place the mind is much clearer and in 



LETTERS FROM PLAYERS 211 

better shape to study, and one can accomplish much 
more in a shorter time. I have no doubt whatever that 
my stand in college studies was as good, if not better, 
while playing than when I was out of training. Then 
a man in training has many temptations removed from 
his sphere which every j^oung man is subjected to, 
either in college or in the large cities. One is also a 
much better judge of character after a season of foot- 
ball, as a good player will constantly study the men 
playing opposite to him, as many men give away much 
by movement of muscles of face, eyes, etc., especially 
when excited. 

Very trul}^ yours, 

W. W. Heffelfinger. 

Manayunk, PniLAELPHiA, Pa., March 8, 1894. 
It is my opinion that in my case football has certainly 
been of very great benefit to me. I knoio that I would 
not have been physically the man I am to-day without 
the training I got in college playing the game of 
football. For three years I played half-back on the 
'varsity, and one year upon my freshman team in the 
same position. The only injury of any note I ever re- 
ceived was a dislocated shoulder received in the Harvard 
game of the fall of 1882. I considered myself, as well 
as the whole team, overtrained in that game, which fully 
accounts for the injury I received, for had I been in a 
proper physical condition I am sure it would not have 
occurred. I consider it a dangerous game for men not 
in training to attempt, but for a man receiving the 
proper training as practised in our large colleges to-day, 
it is a healthful, safe sjDort, and many a time have I 
wished myself back again to my college days, when I 
could go through again those three years on a 'varsity 
team. I have never to this da}'^ regretted it or felt in 
any way any bad effects from it. I have two boys 



212 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

now, that some day I expect to send to college. If 
they don't both make the 'varsity, I shall be greatly 
disappointed and consider that they have missed one of 
the great advantages of a college life. 

Yours very sincerely, 

Alfred T. Baker. 

Baltimore, March 15, 1894. 
I am now a lawyer and no longer indulge in out-door 
sports, but I know that I am better physically and men- 
tally and morally for having played the game. I never 
received but one injuiy that laid me up for any time, 
and that occurred in a practice game with the scrub 
team in my senior year early in the season. Since leav- 
ing college I have played off and on, but I have never 
been in good condition and even then was only hurt 
once about two years ago : no bad results have come 
from either injury, and although I have been out of col- 
lege for ten years, I have not spent one day during that 
time in bed from any sickness. In my opinion the game 
as it was played in my time, and since, is a thorough 
educator in all the qualities that go to make a manly 
man. It teaches obedience, self-restraint, unselfishness, 
and calls for the greatest amount of pluck, self-denial, 
and quickness of thought and action. My interest in 
the game still remains unabated, and every year I go 
back to college to see the practice of the eleven. 
Very truly yours, 

S. Johnson Poe. 

Wilmington, Del., March 14, 1894. 
I would state that I played for two years at Prince- 
ton, at the Association game, and my last year in college 
played Rugby in the fall and spring seasons. It being 
the first Rugby team that the college sent out, of course 
the game was not as hard, nor did it require the special 



LETTERS PROM PLAYERS 213 

development, as you are well aware, tliat it docs row. 
I can state from personal experience that I regard my 
football training at Princeton as equally as valuable to 
me as the mental training that I received there. For 
the first three years tliat I was out of college I was 
subjected to hard manual labor, and I found the reserve 
strength that had been cultivated by football not only 
useful but absolutely essential ; and I believe that unless 
I had had that training I should not have been able 
to have gone through with the work that I did. I can 
also state, based on my own experience, that the mental 
effect has been to cultivate self-reliance and promptness. 
In addition to m}'' own case, I have followed the game 
closely since graduation, through my connection with 
the advisory committee at Princeton, and as the result 
of fifteen years' observation, my emphatic opinion is that 
the physical and mental effects are conducive to nothing 
but good results. 

I would, however, state, as modifjnng the above, in 
common with a number of others, that a reform in the 
present rules is necessary, as the game as it isplaj'^ed to- 
day is a dangerous one for the average schoolboy or the 
man who is not in the best of training ; and we are all 
aware that whatever rules the college adopts the public 
will follow. 

The above is probably superflous, in view of the an- 
ticipated legislation that is now going on. 
Yours very truly, 

Henry B. Thompson. 

61 Mt. Vernon St., March 13, 1894. 
While at college I played two years on my class 
eleven, one year on the second eleven and part of the 
time substitute on the university eleven, and in my 
senior year I was a regular member of the team through- 
out the season. During this time I received only one 



214 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

injury wbich even approaclied being serious : In my 
.fresliman year I was thrown on my head on the frozen 
ground, as a result of a tackle at or below the knee. 
I was laid up for five days, and felt some effects when 
overtired through the winter. I was able to finish out the 
season, playing in a match game a week from the day I 
was hurt. The accident, such as it was, occurred during 
a practice game, and while it is difficult to say what 
might have been, I am inclined to attribute the injury 
received to my inexperience, and to think that in case 
a similar fall had occurred a year or two later, I should 
have been able to protect my head. 

I should like very much to enter my protest against 
the common practice of reasoning from accidents occur- 
ring on scrub elevens to the dangers of university 
football. All players will join me in saying that 
during the fii'st ten days of the season men get bruised 
by things which later would have no effect, because the 
men get out of the habit of falling easily, and it takes 
time to recover the knack. 

When men who are not in condition physically, and 
who fall hard when they are thrown, start in to play 
even a twenty-minute game, it is no wonder that they 
get hurt. No man can be thrown with impunity when 
he is exhausted ; but the accident which often happens 
in that case is due to the folly of the man, not to the 
danger of the game, which to my mind is very slight. 
Yours very truly, 

Wilder D. Bancroft. 

Ansonia, Conn., March 16, 1894. 
I think football is a good thing, and that people will 
be surprised at the result of your figures. I know that 
the game built me up and was the best thing for me. I 
used to have a very quick temper, and now I can control 
it. I attribute this entirely to football. For goodness' 



LETTERS FROM PLATERS 215 

sake don't " monkey " too much with the rules. We 
want one game that cannot be played in the parlor. 
Truly yours, 

F. W. Wallace. 



Seattle, Wash., March 9, 1894. 

In my experience I have only seen one serious acci- 
dent, and that was in the fall of 1886 when Harry 
Hamlin broke his leg on the Yale field, and as I was 
playing next to him I remember the accident perfectly. 
His opponent in the pi*actice game was Charley Gill. 
Hamlin turned suddenly and fell ; the ball was not in 
play at the time and Gill was not in any way responsible, 
as the accident could have occurred in any drawing 
room. 

I believe the training that a man undergoes, both physi- 
cally and morally, is the best that any sport offers, and I 
have had fair experience in the university boat. It 
gives a man courage, such as nothing else can secure for 
him ; he measures his strengtli against that of other 
men, and it gives him confidence. He is obliged to 
control his temper, which is invaluable in after-life. 
My own experience is that I have not suffered physically 
in the least from the game, and that I have in many 
ways profited. 

Yours very truly, 

Geo. R, Carter. 

Princeton, N. J., March 8, 1894. 
I think all lovers of football will appreciate this inves- 
tigation on your part. That the public should be so 
prejudiced against the game wwould hardlj^ seem possible 
when one considers the fact that all those who have 
ever played the game speak so highly in its favor. To 
me it represents the typical form of bodily exercise. I 



216 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

have gotten no end of good from the game, and my 
only regret is that I have been obliged to stop playing 
on account of other duties. I am, 

Yours very truly, 

Darwin R. James, Jr. 

East Orange, K J., March 13, 1894. 

I was in Princeton University from 1874 to 1878, 
during the change from the old football game to the 
Rugby. I played upon the university team in both 
games, two years under the old rules and one year under 
the Rugby rules. I received no injury of any kind from 
either set of games. I consider the Rugby game the 
less dangerous of the two, although it looks rougher. 
During my experience with the latter I saw but 
few players Avho were obliged to leave the field, and 
then it was from a sprain or from some slight accident ; 
but under the old rules I have seen many who were 
carried off because of the dangerous system of "buck- 
ing" then in vogue. The most serious results from the 
game that I observed when in college came from playing 
contrary to the rules, and those accidents were usually 
the result of practice games. 

I underwent a system of training, although compared 
with the modern athlete's method it would be considered 
rather tame. However, we were obliged to be careful 
of our diet and to practise on the field or exercise in the 
gymnasium twice every day. I was never better in my 
life than when so trained, and I consider that my health 
and general physique were so much improved that I 
have been able to bear the severe nervous strain of my 
pastoral work. From my experience and observation I 
am convinced that athletic sports, when not carried to 
a senseless extreme, are a benefit to the average college 
student. 

Thanking you for the opportunity to express my opin- 



LETTERS FROM PLAYERS 217 

ion upon this subject, and trusting tliat this communi- 
cation may be of some service to you, I am, 

Yours sincerely, 

David O. Irving. 

Boston, March 13, 1894. 

I am convinced that the time I gave to football 
amply repaid me, in building up a physique which I 
otherwise Avould never have had. From an overgrown 
and vei'y clumsy lad I developed into a fairly strong 
and far from clumsy college man. 

I attribute this to football rather than to rowing, and 
as far as physical danger is concerned, I consider row- 
ing of more danger to a man's constitution than foot- 
ball with its attendant casualties. 

I do not mean thereby to condemn rowing. But 
merely mention this as a comparison of any danger 
which may attend these two sports. 

Very sincerely yours, 

Gardner Perry. 

Montreal, March 10, 1894. 

"Five years," is the answer which I have given to 
your first question, but in reality I have played two or 
three years more than that. I answered as I did, 
because for five years I was a member either of my 
preparatory school team, the class eleven, or the 'vars- 
ity, while for the other two or three years I was not a 
bona-fide member of any team, but simply a substitute, 
and struggling on the scrub side for a position on the 
school team. 

I am somewhat in doubt what reply to make to your 
second question, for I have never had what might 
be called a serious injury. A broken nose, received in 
a game with the Orange Athletic team, will have to be 
the answer, I guess. This, however, was not serious 



218 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

enough to necessitate my leaving the field. My only other 
injury which in any way might be termed serious was 
received in a practice game. In making a tackle my 
foot slipped in such a way that when we fell I stretched 
a tendon in the inside of my leg. After about fifteen 
minutes I was all right, and since that time I have felt 
no evil effects from the accident. This perhaps would 
be called the more serious of the two injuries, for I 
gave up practice for the rest of that afternoon. 

I consider the general effect of the sport, both phys- 
ically and mentally, good. It has been argued that 
the game is too rough and the exercise too vigorous 
and exhausting. I have always held that to the 
spectator the game appears much more rough 
than it really is. The exercise cannot be consid- 
ered too vigorous when the fact is not overlooked 
that at the beginning of the season the work is 
comparatively light, and the steps to the hard work 
at the end of the season so gradual, that one does 
not experience any bad effects if he keeps himself in 
the condition that is expected of him. Among the 
numerous good points which the game teaches under 
good coaching, are the control of one's temper, to obey 
without questioning, to think and act quickly, to do his 
own duty, not forgetting to help his neighbor. These 
are but a few among the many good points to be 
learned by a season's work with a good team. The 
exercise, the plain diet, and regular hours are bound to 
keep one physically and. mentally active. The harsh 
criticisms against football are not written by men expe- 
rienced in the game; in fact, I don't remember ever of 
hearing one speak against the game who had ever 
played a season or a part of one. I hope these statis- 
tics which you are collecting will prove all and more 
than you expect of them. 

During the last two years the game in the West 



LETTERS PROM PLATERS 219 

has taken an increased hold on the interest of the 
people. Tills is because it is becoming better un- 
derstood. This better understanding is due in a 
great measure to coaching of old players and help from 
the East. Where you find the game best understood 
and best played there you will find the most interest, 
tlie least roughness, and the least number of accidents. 

Sincerely yours, 

F. E. Barbour. 

Boston, March 12, 1894. 

I have thought back over our teams of the old time, 
and with the exception of a broken bone in ankle suf- 
fered by Whiting, 1877, in a Montreal match, I remember 
nothing of consequence, unless two broken collar-bones — 
both in practice — be such. Other than the foregoing, 
I know of nothing in the way of serious injuries to the 
men of such constitution and build as do come to our 
teams, and it should be said that Whiting's injury was 
due to the slipping in the slime over a frozen ground. 

As to after-effects, in my own case I found difficulty 
in the change from active training and good condition 
to a strictly sedentary life. These difficulties Avere of 
course in no sense due to the game, but to the adjust- 
ment to new habits. 

We have many old football men in this vicinity. So 
far as I know all are in the best of health, and all speak 
well of the effects of the game. From them you will, 
doubless, have direct information. 

My word of caution — from a somewhat limited 
observation — would be directed to nature and amount 
of training and practice. I have in my mind a case 
where an excellent man was lost to the game through 
overtraining and practice playing when in poor shape, 
and I think I see a danger in our modern methods of 
making men " stale " by overwork. This should be 



220 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

taken as an impression rather than an opinion, as I have 
not been able to follow affairs closely. 

I am exceedingly glad to hear from you and to have 
the opportunity of contributing even slightly to your 
work. 

From all that I hear the years have gone well with 
you, and you certainly have been able to keep in the 
game to an extent which makes the old men grateful for 
your constant service. I am, with regards, 
Sincerely, 

Feakcis a. Houston. 

Pittsburgh, March 8, 1894. 
I am in the employ of the Westinghouse Electric 
and Manufacturing Company, Pittsburgh, Pa. I cannot 
say that I would have been any better equipped for my 
work mentally, should I not have played football, but 
I can most heartily say that physically I am twenty 
per cent, better a man, for health, for constitution; and 
I consider that in getting along among people the 
sport has been of invaluable service to me. In my four 
years' experience I know of no bad physical effects upon 
any one, except upon some man, perhaps, a crooked 
nose ; also I know of some who were poor students, but 
I don't think football ever made them so. They would 
have been poor students without it. I am, 

Very truly, 

A. F. Harrold. 

Halifax, Nova Scotia, March 13, 1894. 
You have touched me on a sensitive point in asking 
for my opinion as to the dangers of football. I am 
probably one of the oldest active footballists on the con- 
tinent, having fifteen consecutive seasons to my credit, 
and my experience ought to be of some general value 
to you. My experience, too, has been varied ; two years 



LETTERS PROM PLAYERS 221 

in Edinburgh at one of the best football schools, two at 
Harvard, and the balance here, where we meet in the 
army and navy teams some excellent exponents of the 
game as played in the mother country. 

I have witnessed no fatal accidents and few serious 
ones, and, with almost no exceptions, the latter were 
directly attributable to ignorance or recklessness on the 
part of the player injured. 

I am satisfied that football, as it should be plaj'ed, 
and as I have, so far as I could, insisted that it should 
be played, is by no means a dangerous exercise, and 
that it is, if not the best, certainly one of the best, 
means of disciplining the physical and mental faculties. 

Unnecessary roughness does occasionally^ creep in, 
and if not promptly checked by those in authority it 
will increase like any other noxious weed, and eventually 
lower the game in the estimation of nearly all. If 
captains and committees of management will strenuously 
set their faces against this evil it will soon disappear, 
but so long as the powers that be tacitly permit it, just 
so long will it exist. My own experience is that the 
rough player is not the best player in any department 
of the game. More can be done with the head than 
with the muscles, in my opinion. Football is a game 
of skill, not brute force, and the trouble with many 
plaj^ers is that they fail to recognize this distinction. 

You will permit me, sir, to say that I feel proud to be 
associated in this good work, in however so humble a 
way, with a gentleman whose name is a household word 
wherever football is known on this continent. 
Very sincerely yours, 

W. A, Henry. 

Boston, March 14, 1894, 
It seems a shame that such a good, honest game as 
football should be allowed to fall to its present position 



222 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

in some people's opinion ; but while it may be less brutal 
than it was seven or eight years ago, the whole style of 
the game is a great deal I'ougher than the game of 
twelve or fifteen years ago, and I am willing to confess 
that I am one of the malcontents. 

There is no need on this occasion to go into the 
question of the position occupied by the game of to-day 
in the eyes of the public compared with the interest 
shown by the public in former years. I can only say I 
am not a participator in the enthusiasm. 

I am not prepared to show any evil effects of the 
game as played to-day at the colleges ; but I do con- 
sider that the spirit of sport and honor, and the fact 
that it is only a game, are entirely lost sight of. The 
training and preparation seem unnecessarily long and 
severe, though I thoroughly appreciate the fact that a 
man should be in first-class shape to play a good game. 

If one may make a few suggestions about the rules, 
permit me to say that to me the greatest evil of the 
present game is the interference, which is nothing more 
than " off side " play — call it as you will. 
Yours truly, 

F. Warren. 

Boise City, Idaho, March 8, 1894, 
Every one who admires the game and has played on 
a college team appreciates the gallant fight you and 
others are making to establish this noble and manly 
sport in its proper light before a misinformed public, 
whose opinions are fast becoming biassed and teem with 
the ideas of some reporters who are ignorant of the 
game and fond of sensation. 

I cannot understand, if football is as injurious to 
mind and body as some would have us believe that it is, 
why all the old football players stand so loyally for the 
game. Surely if there was any doubt about its bene- 



LETTERS FROM PLAYERS 223 

ficial result, there would be some traitor among our 
own ranks who would lead the fight against us. The 
fact that there is not a dissenting or discouraging voice 
among those who have plaj^'d on the large college 
teams is enough to satisfy any just and enquiring mind. 

There is no doubt that nine-tenths of the accidents 
that are heralded about in the daily press occur in 
games wliere there is practically no knowledge and 
science of the game, and decidedly no training for it. 

I firmly believe that there is no game or amusement 
where youthful energies are so readily developed into 
manliness, restraint of nature and temper encouraged, 
the mind and body strengthened, a noble character 
established, and a man taught to Jcnow himself , as in 
football. 

I regret very much the stand that some of our leading 
professors, and even college presidents, have taken in 
this matter, and only hope that when the facts are pre- 
sented to them their better judgment will prevail, and 
they will aid in establisliing this game, which above all 
others should be encouraged. 

Most respectfully yours, 

Pringle C. Jones. 

Chicago, March 12, 1894, 
In gives me great pleasure to do any thing in my 
power to preserve football, a game which is, in my judg- 
ment, of the most benefit to our j'^oung men, both physi- 
cally and mentally, of any played in our American 
universities. Of course the effect this sport has upon 
the player will depend largely upon the condition he is 
in at the time he begins to play, and what course of 
training he is put through ; but the game itself, if it 
is properly taught, and the man properly handled, gen- 
erates and encourages three qualities by which I set a 
great store, viz., health, endurance, and self-control. 



224 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

I am perfectly frank in saying that I know of abso- 
lutely no instance in which a member of any team play- 
ing at Harvard University has been permanently injured, 
either at practice or in a match. The most serious 
injury that I know of was to Holden, the captain of the 
first team with which I was connected, when his breast- 
bone was broken in the Princeton game of 1887. Of 
course he was confined to bis bed for a number of weeks, 
but he looks stronger than ever before in his life. I 
saw him the other day, and I am thoroughly convinced 
of this. 

As I have noted in the statement enclosed, the only 
injury to me was water on the knee, which happened in 
practice that same season, and disabled me from playing 
for about three weeks. The injury was immediately and 
properly cared for, and there has been no trouble from 
it in these after years. I make no note of broken noses, 
because they are one of the necessary adjuncts of almost 
any sport. Mine has suffered from base-ball, boxing, 
and football, and, I may say, has been at times put 
thoroughly " out of joint " by rowing. 
Yours very truly, 

Geo. a. Caepentek. 

Cleveland, O,, March 16, 1894. 
Regarding my personal experience, the late W. Earl 
Dodge and I were the Princeton delegates to the first 
Springfield convention in the fall of 1876, which organ- 
ized the college association and introduced the Rugby 
game under settled rules. Messrs. Baker and Atwater 
represented Yale at that meeting. I played in the first 
Yale-Princeton game in 1876, and in the first Harvard- 
Princeton game in the spring of 1877 at Cambridge. 
Since that time I have followed the progress of college 
football with keen interest and have witnessed many of 
the great games. 



LETTERS FROM PLATERS 225 

I am fully convinced of the great advantages of 
football and football training in the colleges, mentally, 
morally, and physically, but concur heartily in tlie 
movement for amendment of the rules in the direction 
of abolishing flying mass play and making the game 
decidedly more open. 

Very truly yours, 

J. Potter. 

Boston, Mass., March 20, 1894. 

I played football four years at Exeter Academy, 
and three years at Harvard, and have no hesitation in 
saying that I think nearly every serious accident I know 
much about was due to the poor condition of the player 
or the methods of the captain and coachers. 

I also think many accidents occur in the early part of 
the season, before the muscles are hardened, and while 
the players are in such poor condition that after the first 
few minutes of work they play in a loose, defenceless 
way. 

I also think many men are injured before they acquire 
a knowledge of the game, when they think good foot- 
ball is to slug and " do up" an opponent. 

As for myself, I can state that I was never injured 
seriously dui'ing the three years I was on the Harvard 
eleven, and I know of no game that compels a man to 
cultivate the power of self-control and develop those 
qualities which are sure to help a man in after life 
more than the American game of football. 
Very truly yours, 

John S. Cranston. 

Omaha, March, 1894. 
Entering college when very young and not strong, 
fresh from honors at school, and feeling well fitted to 
acquire more in that larger field, I am thankful that my 
15 



226 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

enthusiasm was aroused and my attention early turned 
to devote all the time allowed me to base-ball and foot- 
ball fields. The training necessary to become a candi- 
date kept me from dissipation (into which I might have 
drifted), and built up a constitution into which so far 
time and sickness have not been able make any serious 
inroad. In my case, I consider the physical advantages 
obtained during my connection with football and base- 
ball fully as valuable to myself as the literary ones 
I enjoyed during my college course. Only good has 
resulted. 

My experience has been that the accidents generally 
occur in the unimportant and practice games, when the 
men do not feel the necessity of being "braced," and 
on the whole being alive, as is the case in the most im- 
portant games. 

I suffered no injury in two and a half years in match 
games, and knew of none more serious than a sprain in 
a regular team where the team had been trained. I 
have no hesitation in saying that I think the effect of 
the sport beneficial both mentally and physically, and 
can see no reason why any one who is apt to be chosen 
as one of a team should not be benefited, with the care 
which is now exercised in training each candidate for 
football honors. Keep up the good work, and let this 
carping about brutality and cruelty cease. Make rules 
punishing the brutal, but do not spoil the game for a 
timid few. 

Sincerely, 

Leonid AS P. Funkhousee. 

Vienna, Austria, March 24, 1894. 
Your letter containing the statement of an old Oxo- 
nian and enclosing a list of questions for football players 
to answer, was received to-day, having been forwarded 
to me from New York. It is with pleasure I am able to 



LETTERS FROM PLAYERS 227 

have an opportunity to exalt the virtues of a sport to 
which I can trace absolutely no bad effects, but on the 
contrary feel that true enthusiasm which naturally 
comes to one who feels in after years the healthy effects 
of this manly game. It seems to me if public prejudice 
against the game of football was more an offspring of 
good judgment than sensation, it would be a blessing 
to many a weak and sickly boy sent by fear-inspired 
parents to our American colleges. I am asked what 
the good effects are in my own case. This would be hard 
to express. I certainly enjoy as a result of my seven 
years on the football elevens of Phillips Exeter Academy 
and Yale University a sound body and a healthy mind. 
The game has given me that which no book or tutor 
could — something of physical force and mental energy. 
As a physician, I could prescribe nothing that could 
reduce the mortality of our college students, those whose 
health and minds are wrecked by too much confine- 
ment and hard study, better than the indulgence in the 
healthy exercise. 

Sincerely yours. 

War. C. WURTENBERG, M. D. 

New York, April 3, 1894. 

I went through several seasons' training with the Yale 
teams, and during that time received no injury for 
which I am the worse off to-day. I have a vigorous 
constitution, and cannot remember having had a day of 
sickness since leaving college. 

So far as I know, the health of the men with whom I 
played has not suffered any bad effects from the game. 

As to the effect upon one's mental growth it is hard 
to form any well-grounded opinion, as it is difiicult to 
tell what one's intellectual powers would have been 
under other than the actual conditions. It seems im- 
probable that in the long run one's intellectual devel- 



228 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

opment will be impeded by sound lungs and perfect 
digestion. 

The charge that the game has a bad ethical tendency 
in its influence upon the players is certainly false. Such 
a charge it would not be possible to make for one who 
has had any intimacy with a number of players during 
a long course of training. 

My observation has convinced me that a course of 
football training where discipline is preserved tends to 
create or strengthen in the player many excellent quali- 
ties — qualities which men to whose opinion age and 
experience give weight regard as most essential to a 
successful and useful life. 

Very truly yours, 

C. O. Gill. 

Beookltn, N. Y., March 2, 1894. 
I think that football as now played will gradually lose 
its interest to the casual onlooker if there are not some 
radical changes made, and as a partial remedy for this I 
would suggest that the play be made more open, and 
mass plays, which are dangerous, be done away with as 
much as possible. "Would also like to see a player try- 
ing for fair catch thoroughly protected. 
Yours truly, 

H. Ward Ford. 



Chicago, March 2, 1894. 

I enclose answers to printed questions and would say 
in addition that I consider the lack of padded trousers 
the reason for the shaking up referred to. It seemed 
to jar the nervous system considerably, and I was some 
time in recovering from the effects. 

While writing on the subject let me say that I am 
very glad that you have taken up the subject of a 



LETTERS FROM PLAYERS 229 

change in the present rules to prevent the mass plaj^s 
and injuries resulting from them. 

Tlie open game was much prettier to watch, much 
less dangerous, and free from the press criticism. I sup- 
pose you are aware of the extent of the feeling on this 
subject. In Chicago it is most intense and general 
among all college men. 

If the game is to hold its high and dignified position 

some such change must come, and that soon. Trusting 

that you will be successful in bringing it about, and 

with best wishes for the future of the game, I am. 

Yours sincerely. 

John Farwell, Jr. 

Hudson, Mass., March 13, 1894. 

My experience in football extended over the usual 
preparatory period of four years in school, and was 
supplemented in college by the steady application of 
the football enthusiast of that time. The game has 
developed, of course, in the matter of team play to 
a great extent since that time, but I feel, in com- 
mon with many other old football men, that this has 
been at the expense of many of the most interesting 
features. How many times we hear surprise expressed 
at an amount of kicking that in our day would have 
occasioned surprise only at its scarcity. 

I am in sympathy with any careful movement to make 
the game more open, in order to give opportunity for a 
brilliant man to obtain credit for the prowess he really 
is capable of, and with this should be included a more 
stringent code of rules. The development of the game 
to its present state, in so many respects unsatisfactory, 
is due chiefly to evasion or dodging of the rules, be- 
coming each year gradually wider and wider, until 
finally the evasion has become the rule itself. 

My injuries were never received in match games. It 



230 FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES 

may be because a team in practice usually has an extra 
number of men added to its opponents, making the 
chances of rough handling much greater. When my 
hair grows gray perhaps the affliction of rheumatism 
or some ailment of old age may make its appearance in 
a knee that was lame or ankle that was sprained. Until 
that happens I should be unable to say, truthfully, that 
any of my injuries were permanent. 

The question of good condition in my time did not 
trouble the football players as it did the rowing men. 
We were never " trained " as the word is used to-day. 
We made a feeble beginning in that line, but the trainer 
was obnoxious as an individual and a "professional" to 
the faculty, and was allowed to retire from the scene as 
gracefully as circumstances would permit. 

Our training was not made to apply to individual 
needs, with the exception of cases where injury made 
rest imperative. The rule against smoking was not 
rigidly enforced, etc., etc. 

The watchful eyes of trainer and medical attendant 
are advantages which we knew not of. 

The effect of the sport on me was of two-fold advan- 
tage : 

It taught me self-reliance and quickness of decision 
(much more than the team-work and preconcerted sig- 
nals of to-day are capable of), and built up my body to 
an extent that I think now would not have been possible 
without that sport, although I will confess here that it 
was supplemented by four years of rowing on class crews. 

I fear I have been somewhat prolix, but I have the 
feeling that in a full expression of opinion from the men 
who have been " through it," lies the best chance of find- 
ing the material for the reformation and defence of the 
game we all love, at what seems to me a critical time in 
its history. Yours very truly, 

Geo. p. Keith. 



LETTERS FROM PLATERS 231 

Berlin, N. H., March 13, 1894. 

I enclose answer to questions asked and hope they 
may serve their purpose. It is certainly a very good 
idea to produce some facts in reply to the theories of 
unfortunate man and woman. 

For my part I regard football the very best sport in 
every way that there is. It requires more physical and 
mental perfection than any others, and produces them. 
I rowed in the 'varsity in 1885 and 1886, but think foot- 
ball more beneficial. 

I think the flying wedge and concerted plays when 
combined weight is used, to the elimination of agility, 
skill, and quickness, and resulting in roughness that de- 
tracts from the game, should be stopped by change in 
the rules. These plays are not football proper, but 
unfortunate developments which, I think, largely explain 
criticism. 

Yours, with best wishes, 

T. B. Burgess. 

Pittsburgh, March 8, 1894. 
I think that I, possibly, am in a position to give 
as good testimony regarding American Rugby foot- 
ball as any body in the countr}^, with the exception 
of yourself, and a few of tlie old men who have 
stuck to the wheel througli thick and thin from the 
very conception of the game. I not only saw the first 
Rugby game played, and played on the first Yale fresh- 
man team, but have seen every important game, with 
the exception of two, up to and including last Thanks- 
giving Day. In many of these games I have been 
fortunate enough to be on the lines, in the dressing- 
rooms during intermission, and with the team afterward, 
and in all these eighteen years, with probably two 
hundred players, have only known of two serious 
accidents, and these you might say temporary. 



232 FOOTBALL TACTS AND riGTJEES 

Eaton was hurt in Hoboken in 1879 badly enough to 
be laid up for the rest of the season, but his injury was 
not sufficient to keep him off the field the next fall, nor 
to prevent his captaining of the 'varsity team the 
following year. 

Billy Brown was pretty badly broken up in the 
Amherst game in 1878, but he is in good enough shape 
to-day. I repeat, these are the only two injuries amount- 
ing to any thing that I have any knowledge of, barring, 
of course, temporary petty injuries which occur fre- 
quently, and are over with in a very few days, such 
as Hinkey received this year, and "Jean" Richards 
received in his day. 

Please keep up your good work until the last croaker 
is compelled to give in. While I think that some of 
the momentum plays of the past two years may have a 
certain danger connected with them, yet with the diver- 
sified game of the past eighteen years, including every 
thing from the open long-passing game to the close 
wedge momentum game of to-day, with the almost com- 
plete absence of any serious injury among a properly 
trained team, the verdict must be with the splendid 
exhibitions of physical manhood throughout the country 
to-day. " Football, with its pure air and systematic, 
perfect training, is, together with being the best sport, 
the most healthful of all the college sports of the day." 
Very truly yours, 

John Moorhead. 



CHAPTER VI 

CONCLUSION OF THE COMMITTEE 

Having entered upon this investigation with a desire 
to gather all the information possible in a short time 
upon tlie subject, we find that the material thus collected 
is sufficient to justify us in submitting it to the public, 
and particularly to those interested in the schooling of 
their own boys. We also feel that we are warranted in 
drawing some conclusions from the facts at our disposal, 
as well as in making some suggestions. They are 
offered solely for the purpose of practically utilizing 
the labor that has been expended in collecting the 
evidence. 

We find that the almost unanimous opinion of those 
who have played the game of football at Harvard, Yale, 
and Princeton during the last eighteen years is that it 
has been of marked benefit to them, both in the way of 
general physical development and mental discipline ; 
also that they regard tlie injuries sustained as generally 
unimportant and far outweighed by the benefits. We 
find the same is true in regard to the players of the 
University of Pennsylvania, so far as we have received 
replies from them. Still further similar enquiries sent 
out to the players of the majority of college teams of 
the season of 1893 have brought back the same unvar}'- 
ing replies, testifying to the fact that the game was one 
of great benefit to the player, both mentally and physi- 
cally. While it was fair to conclude that men who 
have been out of college all the way from two or three 
years to sixteen or seventeen would be fully competent 

233 



234 FOOTBALL PACTS AND FIGURES 

to judge of the effects of the game upon themselves, it 
seemed that something more would be necessary in the 
case of the school-boy who had not yet entered college. 
For this reason our enquiries in that direction were 
made not only of the boy himself, but of the teacher as 
well. The head-masters also of most of the prominent 
schools were courteous enough to reply quite at length 
to our request for the expression of an opinion. Such 
replies we have published in full in this book, both 
those favorable and those unfavorable to the sport. 
We find, however, that the evidence here, too, is that, 
in the majority of cases, the sport has been beneficial to 
the physical development and discipline of the school, 
and the concensus of opinion is that scholarship has cer- 
tainly not suffered. Moreover, this latter conclusion is 
borne out quite strongly in the later progress of the 
boy, for we find in the colleges that the athlete holds 
his own with his fellows in point of scholarship, and 
that there are, in football at least, a number of instances 
of remarkably high standing. 

Coming to the most technical part of the subject we 
find a large number of protests against the so-called 
mass plays, as being productive of a style of game too 
favoi'able to weight, less attractive to the majority of 
the students, and, according to some, conducive to more 
injuries, particularly in the school team. Here, it is 
argued, a different condition exists from that in the 
college team. At school a dull but mature student may 
often be found Avho is too old for his mates and far 
larger than the boys with whom he can play. He will 
be used in the mass plays and injuries to the smaller 
boys result. This committee is not prepared to discuss 
the rules, but certain changes have already been made 
in them looking toward an increased premium upon an 
open kicking game, and something of a reduction of the 
mass plays. 



CONCLUSION" OF THE COMMITTEE 235 

As to the matter of injuries, the committee find that 
by far the greater pai't of these injuries were sprains of 
the ankle and knee, the former predominating. But 
judicious protection of the ankle by means of special 
shoes, it is found, does much to save that member. It 
is probable, however, that the condition of the ground 
is mainly responsible for any great increase in the 
number of accidents to the knee and ankle, and the 
committee would suggest that no school or college field 
be used for football without some responsible person 
being held accountable for its condition. 

We find that the schools are ahead of the majority of 
the colleges in one respect, and that is in the presence 
upon the faculty of some college graduate thorough Ij-^ 
posted upon the sports of the boys and able to tell what 
regulations will be of most benefit as well as most 
practicable in operation. This province seems to be 
one that should be well regarded and not left to the 
general information of some member of the faculty or 
of the college physician, both of whom have their hands 
full of other matters. 

In the opinion of some of our committee, therefore, 
it would be desirable that a graduate should be a resi- 
dent at each college, whose province it should be to 
keep himself thoroughly posted upon the sports and to 
have at his command a mine of information for the 
faculty and parents. Such a one would be able to furnish 
facts which should make indiscriminate and ignorant 
accusations against athletics, which needlessly alarm 
parents from time to time, of less frequent occurrence. 
He could be consulted upon both sides by the faculty 
and students, and his oflices, rightly administered, would 
have a tendency to secure moderation on the part of 
both bodies. 

Such a policy, however, must necessarily be regarded 
at each college with reference to existing usages. In some 



236 rOOTBALL PACTS AND FIGURES 

the methods already in operation are, perhaps, sufficient, 
and our committee refer to the point only to emphasize 
the needs of such usages as will prevent the formation of 
opinions by the public, hj parents, by faculties, and by 
students respectively, without a clear knowledge of- facts 
and sometimes under the influence of prejudice. 

And this leads us to another suggestion. We find 
that while the general result at the end of the year 
shows that the football man more than holds his own as 
a student, both at school and college, there is a com- 
plaint that during the last few days of the playing 
season the men are apt to be listless and inattentive' to 
studies. This leads us to ask if it be not practicable by 
agreement between rival captains, both of school and 
college teams, to provide against a further increase of 
the time put upon the game. We do not speak upon 
the side of the alarmists, but we must contend that 
already the strain is great, the amount of time devoted 
to " summer practice " and " morning practice " has 
doubled in the last two years, and that a further doub- 
ling would certainly be inconsistent with either modera- 
tion or benefit, physically or mentally. Upon the dis- 
armament plan the rival captains could thus agree, even 
if only upon a few points which should tend to keep 
matters where they now are, without injury to the 
chances of either or any team. 

As to expenses and gate receipts, we feel that the 
collegian should not use his sport for profit, but that it 
is the nature of the American collegian, at least, to prefer 
paying his money at the gates for what he chooses to 
see rather than subscribing to any athletic body in bulk 
for its support. If we were speaking, therefore, for 
football by itself, we should be ready to recommend a 
very large reduction in the receipts. We understand, 
however, that the overplus acquired by football supports 
the other athletic organizations which could not of them- 



CONCLUSION OF THE COMMITTEE 23-7 

selves be self-supporting. It seems proper, nevertheless, 
to suggest that efforts be made toward a reduction of 
admission charges to more reasonable figures, but with 
a due regard to the fair requirements of justifiable 
sports as a whole, at the same time ensuring collegians 
the first opportunity of witnessing the contests. The 
admission charges recently made are, in the opinion of 
many of the best informed, too high. The enormous 
sums of money taken in as gate money shock the public 
sense and breed extravagance on the part of the youth- 
ful managers of the sports. 

From the facts at our command we conclude that it 
is possible to make a large reduction in expenditure, 
and tliis being accomplished the necessity for immense 
amounts in gate receipts disappears. This delicate sub- 
ject must, of course, be left to the wise determination 
of the representatives of tlie various colleges and for the 
protection of all ; whatever is done should be done by 
common agreement. In this way any undue advantage 
or disadvantage to one or another team should be 
avoided. In making these several suggestions we at 
the same time submit that we are not in a position to 
know the details by which these suggestions could best 
be made of service, but we are sure that there are many 
influential men among graduates and undergraduates 
Avho will think as we do in the matter, and who can, 
with their practical knowledge, effect the improvements 
called for in the general conduct of what we feel ready, 
after our investigations, to report one of our best sports. 



THE END 



AMERICAN FOOTBALL 

By Walter Camp. With Thirty -one Portraits. 
New and Revised Edition. 16mo, Cloth, Orna- 
mental, $1 25. 

A volume which will aj^peal directly to the players 
of America's robust game, as well as to the followers 
of the sport. . . . There are few men so thoroughly 
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The game is described comprehensively and with ad- 
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Easily the first treatise on that now popular game. 
It is not only eminently readable, even to the tyro, but 
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Mr. Camp probably knows football more thoroughly 
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but to the players of lesser experience and to the ordi- 
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football should be played. — Harvard Crimson. 

It would be hard to find a writer more thoroughly 
conversant with his subject than Mr. Camp, The 
technique of the game is carefully criticised and ex- 
plained, and there are many valuable hints for captains 
and players, each position being treated in detail. — 
Princetonian. 

Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. 

^^Tlie above work is for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent, by 
mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the United States, Canada, or 
Mexico, on receipt of the price. 



PRACTICAL LAWN -TENNIS 

By James Dwight, M.D. Illustrated from Instan- 
taneous Photographs. 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, 

$1 25. 

This book embodies a valuable discussion of the game, 
and makes an indispensable hand-book for daily use 
during the tennis season. The illustrations are from in- 
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the act of making the particular strokes under discussion. 



The author has produced a manual which, if it is as 
useful to players as it is attractive to readers, will leave 
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seen applied to illustrate this game. — Independent,'^ q\t 
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Dr. Dwight is the authority on lawn-tennis in the 
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Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. 



The above work is for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent by 
mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the United States, Canada, or 
Mexico, on receipt of the price. 



A SPORTING PILGRIMAGE 

Riding to Hounds, Golf, Rowing, Football, Cricket, 
Club and University Athletics. Studies in English 
Sport, Past and Present. By Caspar W. Whitney. 
Copiously Illustrated. 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental. 
{About Ready ^ 

The games of our college days and sports of our 
manhood are too often viewed in the light of mere ath- 
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Sport makes manly boys and gentle men ; quickens 
the judgment ; puts pluck in the heart, and strength in 
the body. Until comparatively recent years we of the 
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Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. 



'The above ivork is for sale by all booksellers, or will he sent by 
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RIDERS OF MANY LANDS 

By Theodore Aykault Dodge, Brevet Lieutenant- 
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It is one of those delightful books in a conventional 
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N. Y. Eoening Post. 



Published by HARPER & BROTHERS New York. 



\e above work is for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent by 
mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the United Statea, Canada, or 
Mexico, on receipt of the price. 



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